


hold me tight

by Togaki



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Atsumu's a real bro (just not to Osamu), Humor, Komori is a loyal boi, M/M, Rintarou-centric, Weddings (not SunaOsa's), break ups/make ups, long distance, quotes from "The Good Place", wedding vows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27320626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Togaki/pseuds/Togaki
Summary: Osamu breathes in deeply again, except this time it doesn’t feel like he’s about to plunge into the deep end; it feels like he’s preparing to drown. And Rintarou follows right after him.“We have our own lives, Rin. Maybe we’re just not meant to be in each other’s.”After seven years, they finally call it quits.
Relationships: Komori Motoya & Suna Rintarou, Miya Atsumu & Suna Rintarou, Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi, Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 67
Kudos: 306
Collections: SunaOsa





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SunaOsa: love me
> 
> Me: I can't, I already have all these other projects and ideas.
> 
> SunaOsa: but I exist
> 
> Me: Well, I guess writing a little won't hurt anybody--  
> \--  
> This is the first chapter of three. The first two parts are already written, while the third is under construction. I estimate this will be roughly 30k in total, but honestly, I'm also crazy, so. 
> 
> Warning: The first chapter ends with a healthy amount of angst, but the second and third should more than make up for it. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

[December, 2018]

It’s a cold, snowy night. They’re both sitting on the couch of Rintarou’s Tokyo apartment watching “The Good Place.” Rintarou’s on one side of the couch curled up in a soft blanket, scrolling through Twitter, while Osamu sits on the other end, chin resting on his palm as he watches Jason, with bravado, tear off the sleeves of his tuxedo as he prepares to marry the Siri embodiment love of his life. 

Rintarou busies himself with tap tapping away at his phone, replying to some dumb post Atsumu uploaded an hour ago, and in no time at all, there’s at least a hundred more likes on his response than there is on the original post. 

“Are ya even watching anymore?” Osamu asks, turning his head when he hears Rintarou snicker softly at some meme retweeted by Gin. There’s an eye roll somewhere in his voice that he picks up on.

“No,” Rintarou replies, and he hasn’t for like the past two episodes. He’s already watched all four seasons. It was perfect passing time while working out at the gym, so he ended up getting through it in two weeks. Osamu hasn’t seen it though, which means it’s Rintarou’s job to keep him company. And since his team has a break, he has nothing better to do.

“Ya expect me to watch Florida Man embarrass himself on my own?”

“Why not? It’s like seeing you in high school all over again.”

“I think ya mean ‘Tsumu.”

“Take a good, long look in the mirror, and tell me you didn’t accidentally set off the sprinklers in high school because of a panini press.”

“That’s also ‘Tsumu.”

“Oh shit, you’re right.”

Sighing, Osamu pauses the episode. He studies Rintarou with a contemplative gaze. Rintarou glances up once, sees “the look” come out, and quickly pockets his phone. It’s just his luck that he didn’t turn off his notifications, so his phone is constantly vibrating against his butt.

Leaning his elbow against the back of their couch, Osamu turns his hips so he faces him completely. “Have ya ever thought about what yer vows would be if ya ever got married?”

“What.” 

He wonders if this has something to do with Atsumu’s recent engagement. Osamu has always been weirdly competitive with his brother, even though Atsumu is definitely the louder of the two. Does this mean Osamu wants to get married?  
“That’s not what I mean,” Osamu says, latching his fingers together as he scrutinizes Rintarou’s reaction. “But I do wanna hear what ya’d say if ya did.” 

“I guess I haven’t thought about it before,” he says honestly. He can’t imagine himself married to Osamu, or married to anyone really. Marriage hasn’t ever been on the table before, what with conservative marriage laws in Japan and Rintarou being assuredly gay. Instead, his focus has always been on his next game, his next opponent and how he’ll get one over them. Other than volleyball, he doesn’t look that far ahead. 

But he can at least read between the lines when he’s given them, whether or not Osamu insists it isn’t what he thinks it means.

They fall into a silence. The radiator kicks in. 

It’s been a while since Rintarou has last seen Osamu. Was it October when Osamu came to Tokyo to scope out locations for his business expansion? Or maybe it was before the V. League season even began. It’s gotta be a couple months at least. Most of their interactions have been from video calls or text messages. All quick, nothing huge or deep. Those calls never feel like the time or place to say anything when they’re both busy with their own lives. So maybe that’s why Osamu brings it up now. 

They’ve talked about marriage before, but it’s never been anything serious. Just stupid hypotheticals wrought by the influence of alcohol and 3 am sleeplessness. But if Osamu’s planning on moving to Tokyo for business, and if he’s been really thinking about their 7-year relationship, then maybe marriage is something to consider. 

“Have you?” Rintarou asks, slightly curious now that the subject’s out there.

Osamu draws his lips together, an indeterminable emotion swirling in his eyes as he looks out Rintarou’s seventh floor balcony window. Snow falls gently, cast in a soft orange by the streetlamps. It perfectly captures a lonely scene from the middle of a movie, but it’s pretty.

He recites unenthusiastically, as if it’s his first year Shakespeare presentation. 

“Rin, my lethargic man / Rin, ya should consider a tan / Stop sending me pics of Komori and Washio in photoshopped speedos / EJP Raijins, let’s go?”

There wasn’t a need to tag on the question mark at the end, but Rintarou finds it amusing nonetheless. It’s an obvious butchered version of the wedding vows Jason gives to Janet in “The Good Place,” but he appreciates the extemporaneous spin Osamu gives it. 

He wraps an arm around Osamu, pulls him close. He chuckles into his hair as he brushes a hand through his undercut, the one thing he kept about his hair when he went dye-less. 

“You don’t like seeing them in speedos? Or are you saying my photoshop’s just bad?”

Osamu wraps his arms around Rintarou’s waist, buries his face in the crook of his neck, and breathes in deeply as if he’s trying to steady himself. The man’s been a little off all night, but Rintarou knows not to ask. If Osamu wants to let him know, then he’ll let him know. He’s not his boyfriend’s keeper.

“Yeah,” Osamu says. He doesn’t specify which one he’s replying to, so Rintarou just takes it that it’s both. 

His brushes turn into soothing massages, and pretty soon they’re laying back on the couch, Osamu squishing Rintarou and Rintarou enjoying being squished. 

“Do you want me to give you an actual answer?” Rintarou asks, circling back to the marriage vows Osamu brought up. “I can probably think one up. Let me just steal some sappy vows online quick.”

“No,” Osamu says, shaking his head, and the hair tickles Rintarou’s nose. 

“Or I can always ask Atsumu what he plans to say for his, then say it first to make it look like he copied me. I bet it’ll be cheesy.”

“No, just— It’s fine. Forget I brought it up, okay? Let’s just— let’s just stay here like this. Please?”

And Osamu holds tight onto Rintarou like he’s got something to lose.

This has happened before. It’s all become routine to Rintarou at this point. Something gnaws at Osamu, he bottles it in, Rintarou holds him gently, and later if Osamu feels like sharing, Rintarou will listen. Though it’s been some time since this has last happened, his body remembers the motions. 

The radiator hums; the snow outside is pretty. 

Rintarou holds him, holds him close, and by morning, neither of them bring it up again. 

[April 2019]

The V. League season ends and it ends on a high point with the MSBY Black Jackals emerging as the league’s new victors, usurping the previous untouched Adlers from their back-to-back cups. It’s great for Atsumu, because now he can brag about how “love wins” and how “love triumphs all,” but it’s bad for Rintarou who wants nothing more than to slap him in the face and tell him that “those are just synonyms, you idiot.”

But it really is good timing, Rintarou thinks, because though there was a lot of support for the couple when they first came out together, there were many skeptics out there—haters, even—that appeared after Atsumu and Sakusa publicly announced their engagement. The two didn’t give the fans any heads-up, though, so half of it was to be expected. One day the two are at each other’s throats, and then all of a sudden they’re getting married? Talk about whiplash. 

Then the floodgates opened, and people on both sides of the spectrum gave their loud opinions. Some loved them, some hated them; there was a lady who typed up an entire essay on why homosexuals should either go to therapy or go to jail, and once she discovered that Sakusa was privately seeing a therapist for his mysophobia, it was like adding fuel to a fire that shouldn’t have been stoked in the first place. There were some really cruel, nasty things passed around on the Internet. 

But seeing them, together, standing as winners on the same court as Atsumu throws his arms around Sakusa, sobbing, and Sakusa cradling him in his embrace, while the rest of the world watches this extremely intimate moment between two people who pledge to spend the rest of their lives together, even the haters shut up. 

Rintarou sends a message to Atsumu, saying if _this_ is what he’s reduced to when he hasn’t even had the ceremony yet, then how badly will Atsumu bawl when he’s saying his “I dos” to Sakusa wearing white. 

Atsumu sends back a photo, uncensored, of Rintarou’s favorite finger. 

But it gets him thinking. With Atsumu’s wedding coming up (they chose August, right before the V. League starts up), Rintarou should start planning the next step for _his_ relationship.

Now he and Osamu haven’t brought up the subject of marriage again since that snowy night—Rintarou’s not even sure how serious it was, given it was an out-of-the-blue sort of ordeal—but he has on his mind a couple of other things that they should start thinking about. For example, moving in together. 

It’s a bit silly to think about, but for the entire duration of their steady relationship, he and Osamu have never lived together. They’ve gone on trips together, sure, had maybe a week or two where they could spend at the other’s residence when they didn’t have work or study, but they’ve lived more than half of their relationship apart from one another. 

During high school, they were still living with their families; after graduating, Osamu went to a local culinary school in Hyogo while Rintarou duked it out in the urban streets of Tokyo. They couldn’t afford to see each other often since both of them were trying their hardest to achieve their dreams, but even once both of them were able to settle down, they weren’t able to settle down _with_ each other. Osamu was getting things rolling in Osaka, and Rintarou felt comfortable in Tokyo. The locations just didn’t align. 

It wasn’t until Osamu started entertaining the thought of and then _going through_ with the idea of setting up another shop in Tokyo for his onigiri business that the idea of living together became plausible. 

So here he is with his teammate Komori, after the season’s end, looking at apartments in Tokyo because his current apartment is a tiny studio which he first moved into after he received his first steady paycheck playing in the professional league. 

He hasn’t told Osamu about the apartment search, doesn’t think he needs to. Osamu’s coming up in a few weeks anyway to meet his investor and to start on his Tokyo location project. By then, Rintarou will have probably picked out a perfect apartment, located halfway between his stadium and Shinjuku where Osamu plans to set up shop, and surprise him with their very own place for when he moves up. And if Osamu doesn’t like it, they can always reevaluate. 

The other thing is that Osamu has gone pretty silent these past few weeks. It’s not anything new. They’ve gone stretches where their main mode of communication is tagging each other on FaceBook posts. It’s what happens with long distance. Sometimes that man will get so caught up in his onigiri business that he won’t have time to check Rintarou’s stream of text messages—especially when the season’s over and Rintarou suddenly has more time on his hands than he knows what to do with. 

The team still has practice, of course, but it’s less rigorous and less frequent than during the season. Most players use this time to plan trips or spend time with their families. Though Rintarou mostly stays in Tokyo, taking the bullet train down to Osaka only a few weekends to see Osamu. 

The real estate lady unlocks an empty apartment to a beautiful window view of the Tokyo skyline. Komori whistles as he steps into the _genkan_ , kicking off his shoes as he pads around the spacious suite. Rintarou follows him, slipping off his shoes neatly. 

It’s a nice apartment. It has dark wood flooring and granite kitchen counters and a balcony with a sliding screen door overlooking the cityscape seven stories above the asphalt. He knows Osamu would absolutely love the kitchen, because it has an island counter, which he could set all of his ingredients on when cooking. The unit is larger than Rintarou’s studio by a mile and a half, and affordable to boot. 

Komori chats with the lady, asking about the neighborhood, the apartment’s history, what general traffic is like—he knows the rounds like the back of his hand because he likes to change scenery every year or two, citing “a sense of adventure” to be his reason, though Rintarou doesn’t understand how moving so frequently could create a sense of enthrallment. More like terror.

“So what do you think, Suna?” Komori asks, moving to stand beside Rintarou as he peers through the glass sliding door. 

“It’s nice,” he says. But it’s not the right one. There’s something missing. 

It’s quiet, for one, which should be expected since this is a quiet neighborhood. Though both he and Osamu are pretty reserved people, they don’t mind the white noise. It’s preferable, actually. It reminds them that there’s something living, that there’s something warm thrumming from the city. There’s a vivacity to it that he enjoys. 

There’s also no nature nearby, and having grown up in the rural landscape of Hyogo, a little green would be nice. Since this is for where they’ll be living together in the years to come, he might as well try to hit the target as close as he can. 

They check out a few more places. Luckily the real estate lady is very willing, likely trying to grab onto a good sale since Rintarou has a fat bank account thanks to his years in the league, so they proceed smoothly. 

They look at places in Minami-Shinjuku, Yoyogi, and Sendagaya, and they’re all good, but it’s only in the last place that Rintarou thinks he’s found the one. 

It’s close to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which means lots of green for the Hyogo boy, and it’s a two minute walk from the Chuo Line, which makes it easy to get to work every day. It’s not quiet, but it’s not exactly loud either, though there’s plenty of foot traffic below their apartment since there’s a shopping district just two blocks over. There’s also a shogi hall about ten blocks away for Osamu to keep up his favorite pastime. 

But what makes this place really special is the fact that it has Osamu written all over it. In the doorway, in the kitchen, in the bedroom—Rintarou can see it all clearly. Osamu there with him. Living together. 

It’s probably the first time he can see his future so clearly. It’s a first, to be looking ahead. 

Komori sees how charmed Rintarou is, so he asks the real estate lady, “How long will this apartment be available for?”

She puts on her best customer service smile. “This area is very attractive to young people, especially older students at the nearby Keio University. There are a lot of individuals that choose to rent for half of a term, so we like to be accommodating of them if they feel like they only want to sign for a few months at a time. Generally, an apartment like this will be leased away in a few days or weeks, give or take.”

“Is there anybody else looking at this apartment?”

“Just you two at the moment.”

Komori gives Rintarou a look that says he has time to think about it, but Rintarou wastes none of it. 

This place is good, no, it’s perfect.

He had planned on looking a little longer, but hey, there’s no time like the present. 

“I’ll take it.”

\--

Osamu breaks his silence a week later when the first message he sends after Rintarou copies him on a meme of Aran reacting to Smudge the cat is “will be up on Friday.”

Well, that’s earlier than he expected. 

It doesn’t matter, though. Osamu was planning on hunkering down officially in Tokyo in just a few weeks, so a few weeks ahead of schedule doesn’t make a difference. He already has the new apartment signed for and cleaned; it’s all a matter of moving both Rintarou’s and Osamu’s things in and making it officially theirs. 

A typhoon hits on Friday as Osamu’s train is supposed to pull in. 

Rintarou waits at the station, watching as the wind picks up and thrashes tree leaves and business flags wildly. He brought one umbrella, thinking that it would be big enough for the two of them to share, but now he thinks he should have brought a full rain suit. 

He checks his phone for any updates. There’s one message from Osamu saying that the train’s stalled due to the rain. It could be anywhere from a few minutes delay to a whole hour’s delay, so if Rintarou can help it, he should just go back home. 

He’s not bothered with waiting though. He just leans back on the bench and plays mobile legends on his phone to pass the time. 

About thirty minutes later, the train pulls in and Rintarou waves his hand in a lazy salute when he finds Osamu. 

Osamu carries one small duffel over his shoulder. His nose scrunches in confusion. 

“I said ya could go home. What’re ya standing here like a bum for?” 

Rintarou rolls his eyes, pockets his low battery phone and his hands. He was getting crushed at league. 

“Do you need me to carry that?” he asks, ignoring Osamu’s question as he juts his chin toward the man’s bag. 

“I carry 50-pound bags of rice every day. Ya telling me just cause I don’t bench press fancy weights at a private gym that ya don’t think I could bench press _you_?”

“ _Sheesh_ , I was just offering. Chill.”

“Ugh. No need. I’m frozen to the bone now because of the air con in that train. C’mere so I can suck the warmth outta ya.”

They get soaked by the rain even though it’s only a five minute walk to Rintarou’s studio. Osamu huddles close to Rintarou the entire way, shivering in his thin black tee, and Rintarou pulls him even closer as he shifts the umbrella to cover mostly Osamu, though really it helps no one at all. 

They make it into the apartment sopping wet. The first thing Rintarou says is, “Shower?”

“Shower,” Osamu agrees. 

“Together?”

Osamu thinks about it for a second. His eyes roam over Rintarou, something indeterminable there again. Then finally, 

“Together.” 

\--

Forty minutes and two rounds later, they emerge from the steaming bathroom, towels wrapped around their waists even though there’s nobody to hide from, and absolutely flushed from the afterglow of sex. They go to Rintarou’s closet and he fishes out some underwear, a few clothes, and tosses them at Osamu since the man’s own clothes will have to all go in the dryer now, thanks to the weather. 

They get dressed. Rintarou turns the heat on a little higher, then goes to plop himself on his couch, letting out an exhausted sigh. He lays down on his side and pulls out his phone, checking notifications. He’s vaguely aware of Osamu shuffling around his tiny kitchenette, pulling out his rarely used coffee maker from the bottom cupboard and grabbing coffee beans from the top shelf. 

His phone’s dying, so he leans over the arm of the couch precariously, not wanting to get up, but not wanting to lose this failing battle, and barely reaches the charging cord left haphazardly on the floor. As he plugs his phone in, he hears the distinct sound of chinking ceramic. 

“Make some for me, too,” he says, resting his chin on the arm of the couch. 

“Ya got arms and legs. I ain’t yer nanny,” Osamu says, though he pulls out a second mug. His is the standard, convenience store black-colored one; Rintarou’s is the orange one shaped like a fox. It’s even complete with ears. Osamu bought it as a gag gift a few years back. 

“You could be. Make me your baby.”

“Yer already a giant baby.”

“So you agree that you’re signed up for this shit.”

“Does it count if I was unconscious when I signed the paperwork?”

Rintarou laughs and goes back to laying on his back.

The coffee maker beeps, and Osamu pours out two steaming cups of black coffee. Rintarou likes his with loads of sugar, so Osamu rifles through his fridge and leaves him with creamer and sugar on the coffee table to figure out for himself, while he goes to sit on the barstool at the counter. 

“How long are you staying this time?” Rintarou asks, sitting up. He breaks open a packet and dumps it in mercilessly; the crystal packet of sweetness doesn’t even stand a chance. He tears open another one without bothering to check how it tastes with only one packet, before drizzling creamer on top like he’s some fancy barista. Oh shit. No spoon. 

“Few days, maybe,” Osamu says quietly, slowly sipping his coffee. He likes his coffee black. Rintarou will never understand his boyfriend’s weird preference for bitterness. 

He returns from the kitchenette with a fat spoon meant for soup and cereal, not for stirring coffee. It works though, and that’s all that matters. “Is your shop alright without you? Did you have to close for this?” he asks, stirring. 

“Chiaki’s there,” Osamu says. “He’s been there for a while. Covers for me when I gotta go out of town.” 

“Ah, him, right,” Rintarou says, too lost in trying to remember who the hell Chiaki is when he burns his tongue on the coffee. “Damn,” he hisses, fanning his tongue. 

“Baby.” 

“Shut it.”

He collapses back on the couch, mug set on the coffee table. The rain patters the windows loudly. It’s like he’s watching a live news report from the Amazon jungle or something. 

“So what’s the occasion? Did you come to check out your new location? Have you even signed the papers for the place yet?”

“That’s why I’m up here, actually,” he says, raking his hand through his dark brown locks. Rintarou’s always liked his original hair color. Thought it suited him. “ I’m going crazy dealing with this investor, Rin. It’s like one second he’s in all the way, and the next he’s pulling out like a bad date night. It’s been going on for months. _Months_ . I haven’t even _seen_ the papers, much less gotten around to looking at them with my lawyer.” 

“Sounds like a dick,” he says, clasping his fingers across his stomach as he leans his head back. “Can’t you just ditch him and find somebody else?”

“You don’t _understand_. If I ditch him, I’ll have to start all over again. Petitioning, campaigning. There ain’t a lot of people wanting to take a chance on a young business. It took so long the first time around, and I honestly don’t have the time and energy to try again. Not when I only have Chiaki trained in. I can’t keep taking off on him like that. I can’t keep leaving my business behind,” Osamu sighs. He looks extremely stressed. His face is buried in his hand. 

It strikes Rintarou that this is the first time he’s ever heard any of this. 

He walks over, takes Osamu’s mug out of his shaking hands and sets it on the counter. Carefully, he tips Osamu’s chin so he looks at Rintarou. 

“Hey, it’s fine,” he says, shushing Osamu. He brushes a strand of hair from his forehead. It’s still damp. They probably should have dried off a little better. He could get sick. “If that guy can’t see how _great_ of a prospect you are, then it’s his loss. There are so many other people out there, you don’t have to cling onto him.”

“But _Rin—”_

“It doesn’t have to be now,” Rintarou says, brushing his thumb in the space under Osamu’s eye. He likes it there, likes it when he kneads soothing circles there. “You got all the time in the world. You’re still young. You’ll figure it out.” He always has. 

Osamu grabs Rintarou’s wrist. He grips it steady as he looks into Rintarou’s eyes. They’re dark. Dark and tumultuous. Like a storm swirling with a harbinger.

His voice is quiet. “Why do ya say it like it’s got nothing to do with you?”

Then Osamu is burying his face in Rintarou’s chest, digging his fingers into his shoulders. 

He doesn’t think about the fact that he has the keys to their new apartment wrapped in a beautiful maroon bag tucked away somewhere in his desk. He hadn’t thought about what if all of their plans fell through. But Osamu doesn’t need to know that. Not right now. Right now, he needs reassurance. 

So he just holds him, tells him he’s amazing, and when they let go, both of their coffees are cold. 

\--

Osamu slams the door close, face screwed up in twisted anger. Rintarou swings it back open as he follows close on Osamu’s tail. 

“I can’t _believe_ that guy!” he shouts, pacing around Rintarou’s tiny apartment looking for god knows what. He settles for the balcony door and slides it open with the force of a two-ton truck. He leans over the railing and screams. “Ya fucking _crook_ ! Can’t _believe_ I wasted good sushi on ya!”

“You tell him, babe.”

Osamu lets out a cry of pure outrage. Flutters of pretty curses slip out his lips as he’s raising the middle finger to the nonexistent man in the sky, but more likely than not, it’s his upstairs neighbors that receive the message. 

_Oh shit_. 

Rintarou does damage control. 

As he reels a writhing Osamu back inside by the belt—he swears he’s like a cat—he pats his head softly, like a gentle lullaby as if somehow the motion will hush Osamu into a fitful ease. 

“Come back to me, ‘Samu, I only have patience to deal with one overdramatic Miya, and we both know it’s not you,” Rintarou says, spinning Osamu around so he can look at his face. He wraps his hand around Osamu’s waist and pets his hair. “I see what you mean now. That guy is a jerk. He’s just siphoning off what he can while he plays the game, and then once he’s done, he’s gonna take off. You can’t trust a guy like that. I’m amazed you were able to stand him this entire time.” 

“He _said_ he was gonna do it, Rin. I told him time and time again that if I couldn’t have him all in, then to stop while we were still thinking it through. But he told me, he fucking told me that he wasn’t gonna pull out, that he would do this. For fucking _months_ , Rin. He _promised_ me,” Osamu sobs, clutching Rintarou’s shirt. 

Rintarou holds him, cradles him. “I know. I know. He’s a fucking twat and a dick. He doesn’t deserve your partnership; he doesn’t deserve _you_.” 

“He _promised,_ ” Osamu whimpers, shuddering violently, and the way he holds onto Rintarou, talking about promises like he’s a child again, it just _breaks_ his heart. 

That investor could go to hell for making his boyfriend cry. 

“Forget about him,” Rintarou says, finding bravado. “Forget about that jerk. You’ll start over. You’ll look for other investors. I’ll help out this time. We can go through Komori or someone, some startup or whatever, just anyone who’s not a fucking turncoat.” 

“ _No,”_ Osamu says, lifting his face off of Rintarou’s chest. His cheeks are wet with tears, and he wipes at them haphazardly. Rintarou’s heart seizes. “ _No,_ I _told_ you, Rin, I can’t do this again. I can’t keep spending time like this away from my business. I’m barely holding it together with what I’ve got now.”

“That’s why I’m here. Just leave it to me.” 

“Rin, do ya even know how to _make_ a petition? Do ya even got the time to spend going around kissing up to people who won’t even give ya the time of day?”

“Well, you could help me—”

“I _don’t have the time_ , _Rin._ All of my energy—everything—I put into _this_. There’s no guarantee that we’ll even find someone in the next year, if we’re lucky,” Osamu blinks tearily. 

“It’s fine,” Rintarou says, cooing as he brushes a hand next to Osamu’s ear. Feathery touches. Calming. Always the gentle graze. “We have time. It’s impressive enough that you already have your own business at 23. Two is like asking for karma. We can take things slow. Doesn’t have to be now, or next year. I’ll talk to people I know. I’ll ride down to Osaka when I have time, and we can—”

“No, no, Rin, I can’t, I—”

“Well, _tell_ me what I should do,” Rintarou insists, hands on Osamu’s wet cheeks. “What am I supposed to do to help?”

“I…” Osamu has no words, just crumpled up confidence. 

Rintarou presses a kiss to his forehead, right between his brows. He murmurs softly. “It’ll be fine.”

Suddenly, he’s pushed away. He’s shocked. Blinking, he stares back at Osamu. 

“Stop saying it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine! I’m _not_ fine!” Osamu screams at him. His chest heaves erratically, like he’s just surfaced after swimming for hours in a black trench. 

Rintarou reels back. “I’m just trying to help!”

“Well, ya fucking _suck_ at helping!”

He lifts his arms up in surrender. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Not _this_ !” Osamu shouts, waving his hand everywhere. “ _This…_ ”

“‘This?’” Rintarou asks, and he’s sure Osamu doesn’t mean the fight they’re having right now. “‘This,’ as in…”

Osamu shuts his mouth. He stands frozen and mute, like the time Rintarou caught him trying to put back together his favorite Spider-Man collectible, the one that broke when Osamu accidentally knocked it over. Except this time, it feels like _he’s_ the collectible that broke. 

Rintarou chokes. “‘Samu, what…”

The man picks up his duffel. He grabs aimlessly tossed clothes and socks from the bed and from the couch, stuffs it in his bag as Rintarou watches helplessly. “I’m leaving. Chiaki’s waiting. Ain’t worth staying if the outcome’s been decided.”

“Not ‘worth staying,’ but what about…” _Me_ , Rintarou thinks but doesn’t say. Doesn’t he want to stay a little longer, if not for the investor, then at least for him?

Osamu slumps. He looks stricken as his hands stop moving. Rintarou’s shirt is in his hands, halfway shoved in his bag. 

“I don’t know,” Osamu says finally. It feels like he’s drifting further away from Rintarou. 

He walks over, creeps up behind Osamu’s back—the same back that looks even smaller than it did last night—and places a palm over the hand holding his shirt. He holds him from behind, and it sucks—it sucks because it feels like he has him but he doesn’t. 

“Will you call me?” Rintarou asks, small. 

Osamu replies softly. “I don’t know.”

“Will you text me?”

Again. “I don’t know.”

He sighs. He leans his head atop Osamu’s and wraps his arms around his shoulders from behind. There’s no telling what expression is on his boyfriend’s face. He breathes out. 

“Will you let me know if you need me?”

He’s quiet. So quiet that Rintarou could close his eyes and be none the wiser that there was ever another person in the room with him. 

Then, at last, Osamu says, “Yeah.”

[May 2019]

Osamu doesn’t call. He doesn’t text. 

Rintarou continues to spam his inbox with memes and stupid messages. He thinks maybe Osamu will smile if he sees them, so he doesn’t think twice about sending them. 

He goes to the gym, lifts weights and does cardio for about two hours. Then he goes to the bookstore, because nothing says sexy intellectual like cookbooks for dummies. He buys five of them without a second thought, thinks maybe he can surprise Osamu the next time he comes over by making something other than his signature burnt noodles. 

Next is the park where he spends his afternoon pretending like he’s actually reading the cookbooks he bought, when actually he spends more time on his phone scrolling through Twitter and FaceBook, roasting Atsumu on his latest couples post with Sakusa, or backing up Kita in a farmers Twitter war about rice (he has no fucking clue where to start). All the while, his heart rate picks up when he hears his phone notification ding, only to read the sender’s name and be left feeling even more hollow than before. 

He has dinner, he watches shows, he chats with his teammates on the days when they have practice, but other than that, he waits. 

He twirls the keys to what should have been his and Osamu’s new apartment in his hands, watching as the light gleams off the metal. He didn’t renew his lease for his tiny studio. The idea of moving in after signing the paperwork had mostly been set in his mind. He wonders what Osamu would think, seeing Rintarou living in a new place. He’d probably ask why, then say something snarky about Tokyo being too rich for his blood, and Rintarou would snipe right back and say, “Well, what does that make you, dating a Tokyoite?” Or Rintarou might be too embarrassed about jumping the gun with living together to even respond when he asks. 

He wonders what he’ll say when Osamu eventually does ask. 

[June 2019]

The new apartment is nice. His lease for his studio expired last month, and his landlord was sad to see him go. _The quietest resident he’s ever had_ , he had said. Though that only applied when Osamu wasn’t around or when Rintarou had one hand stuffed over Osamu’s mouth as he’s railing him to oblivion. 

Komori helps him with the move. He absolutely loves organizing shit, even though he’s lazy about moving boxes. To be fair, the elevator was broken on the day Rintarou moved in, and if it weren’t for the fact he goes to the gym six times a week, either to practice or to work out, then he would have had trouble climbing eleven flights of stairs, up and down over and over again until the moving truck was finally empty. 

It’s easier from there, and Komori has a grand time digging through his stuff and stopping every five seconds to coo, “ _Ooh,_ so _that’s_ what your beau looks like,” whenever he happens to find a polaroid of Osamu shoved between the recesses of books, magazines, or whatever other shit he could find because he was too lazy to buy an actual photo album. Rintarou just rolls his eyes and blandly states that the libero’s cousin is literally marrying his boyfriend’s clone (who they play regularly during the season, by the way), so why the heck is he so surprised to discover what he already knows?

He snatches the picture from Komori and glances it over. It’s dated his third year of high school, right before he and Osamu started dating. Rintarou looks bored catching goldfish at the booth during the summer festival, but Osamu is posed crouched behind him, cheeks rosy and eyes glued to him. It was only when Atsumu gifted him the photo later on that he realized Osamu was already in love with the him who thought it would never happen, not in a million years. It makes him ache remembering a time when he didn’t have Osamu by his side. 

Komori finds another photograph stuck between the pages of a play pamphlet, shrieks _eureka!_ , before Rintarou yanks both the photo _and_ the pamphlet from his hand and files it neatly away in the bookcase. 

Yet, there’s a part of him that wants to run his hands over the photos Komori keeps discovering, that wants to see through the eyes of others how his relationship developed. How it imprinted in their overly bright, grainily exposed polaroid memories. 

He traces the memories in his mind, and he finds them like an empty cup. Solid, but empty. 

Memories can’t make up for the real person.

“When are you guys seeing each other again?” Komori asks, once they’ve unpacked all they can for one day. Rintarou can pick it up again by himself some other time. Only a few boxes are left stacked in the living room. 

“Dunno,” he says, shrugging as he goes to sit at the island kitchen counter, and Komori gives a hum. Osamu hasn’t responded to him in weeks. It’s a little lonely, but he thinks they’ll figure it out. It’s not the first time, and it probably won’t be the last. He’s a pretty patient guy. So though Komori wrinkles his brows and thins his lips disapprovingly, he just replies, “Soon.”

\--

Soon turns out to be two weeks later, right as he embarks for Osaka for his weekend summer visit to Osamu’s, as well as for his check-in with Atsumu for his former teammate’s upcoming wedding. 

His plans got a little jumbled because of Osamu’s fucked-up investor. Osamu was supposed to spend the summer in Tokyo, not the other way around. But it’s fine. It works out in his favor, because Sakusa calls Komori down to talk about the wedding. So he rides the train down there with his friend and teammate, enjoying the scenery, paying no mind to the cool glances Komori gives Rintarou whenever he checks an empty notification box. 

He’s noticed that whenever he brings up Osamu, Komori turns a little frigid. 

By the time they get to the Miya/Sakusa residence—a swanky, 2LDK apartment in the middle of the luxurious Minato Ward (rumor has it that Sakusa foots most of the gigantic bill)—Rintarou has run out of things to talk about with the normally bubbly libero, and his phone positively needs a recharge. 

The fancy apartment is a dumpster fire. 

“Where’s the _fucking_ phone number for the caterer?” Sakusa grates immediately upon opening the door, then proceeds to trip over messily tossed magazines, paperwork, and wedding binders as he scoots out of the _genkan_ for Rintarou and Komori to come in. Not even a hello, or a “ew, you’ve looked better,” just a simmering glare before he retreats back to his hell hole. 

From the other room, Atsumu shouts, “Omi, I _thought_ ya were gonna take care of the flower shop. Why are they asking me to make sure if I want out-of-season azaleas when I fucking told ya I wanted daffodils?”

“Well, excuse _me_ for forgiving the fact your handwriting could give even doctors a heart attack. I just faxed your order over.”

“But they’re not even in the same family! Azaleas are _clearly_ part of the ericaceae family, while daffodils are narcissus!”

“How _wonderful_! Describes you perfectly,” Sakusa gripes, angrily grabbing his phone when he finally finds what looks to be a hastily scrawled phone number on a catalogue taped to the fridge. 

While Komori trails through the mess to calm a snippy Sakusa, Rintarou peeks his head in the other room. It looks like it’s the room designated for Atsumu whenever Sakusa deems him a nuisance worth kicking out of the master bedroom, because it’s pretty empty, has just a few photos of Inarizaki, and Atsumu taps away madly at the keyboard while using his toes to pull open cabinet doors like he knows this room blind. 

“What are you working on?” Rintarou asks, not knowing where to put his bag, so he just dumps it on what he assumes to be Atsumu’s pile of volleyball shit, so neatly shoved to the corner. It’s a miracle Sakusa hasn’t noticed. 

“Guest list,” he mutters, chucking his phone aside on the bed after he finishes correcting the florist on the right family of flowers he’s requesting. 

“When is that supposed to be done?” 

“Two months ago.”

Rintarou cracks a grin. “You’re fucked.”

“Yeah,” Atsumu sighs, swiveling in his chair. The man looks like a crow’s nest. Frizzy hair, dark eyebags, oily complexion—forget about _Sakusa’s_ mysophobia, Rintarou wants to spray him down with disinfectant. But when he sees Rintarou standing in the doorway, his face breaks out in a wide, boyish smile, and it reminds Rintarou of the face he’s ached to see all these weeks. And though Rintarou would rather _not_ touch this particular Miya twin until he’s hopped in the shower and boiled himself at least three times, he accepts the stinky hug Atsumu gives him. “Be lucky yer just the best man. Ya don’t have to put up with wedding planning and shit, or _god_ , worse, _moms_.” 

They laugh and then let go. “One of _seven_ best men, actually. Don’t you realize Sakusa’s only got the one? You’re making him look bad.” 

“ _Fuck_ you,” Atsumu snorts, rolling his eyes. “All it means is I’m a catch, and Omi’s marrying up.”

“Who’s the one paying for this apartment again?”

Atsumu decks him in the gut. 

Rintarou nurses his sore stomach as Atsumu returns to his cluttered desk. “So what’s on the agenda? Am I sponging off of you until ‘Samu gets here, or am I sponging off of your hubby-to-be?” He sits down on the bed. It’s hard like wood. Damn. 

Atsumu stops writing down whatever he is in the middle of copying. He blinks a few times. “Did ‘Samu not tell ya?”

“Tell me what?”

The blond pinches his nose bridge. 

“He’s not coming here, Suna. He’s staying at the shop til close. _I’m_ probably going to have to be the one to head over when I’m done with all of _this,_ ” he says, gesturing to his whirlwind of wedding planning. Rintarou wasn’t aware. He never got the message. Atsumu looks concernedly at him. “Is everything alright with you guys? Yer always so grossly on the same page, I feel like a third wheel even though _I’m_ the supposed to be the one with twin telepathy, so it’s weird ya don’t know.”

“We’re fine,” Rintarou says, a little too quickly. The timestamps on his infrequently replied-to messages would beg to differ. “He probably told me, and I just missed it. But seriously, why are you and Sakusa only dealing with this _now_?” he asks, segueing the conversation. 

Atsumu blushes beet red. He waves his hand like he’s making up bullshit, and what comes out of his mouth next makes Rintarou wish it was. “We, uh, got a little excited after the V. League ended. Champions and all that. So we, uh, took an early honeymoon?”

“Atsumu,” Rintarou says, horrified. 

“It’s fine! We’ll have the invitations done before ya know it, and we can always downsize if we have to—”

“Two months, Atsumu?”

The blond slams down his hand on the desk, rattling the pencil holder. “ _Fine!_ We got carried away! I _live_ with the man, how can ya tell me not to—”

“I’m begging you, please don’t finish that sentence.” 

Atsumu pouts and crosses his arms, looking like a toddler just forced into a time-out. “Whatever. Yer just jealous cause ‘Samu’s fighting with ya.” 

Rintarou’s eyes widen. “I never said—”

“Ya didn’t need to, cause I asked him,” he says, huffing. He looks out the window. It’s bright and sunny, perfect for spending time outside instead of breathing in whatever noxious fumes have been trapped in this rat hole Atsumu’s made himself. “Asked him how you were and got the loudest FU communicated through dead eyes and a smushed-up to-go order of onigiri. I don’t know what happened, but it feels like it’s been going on for a while now,” Atsumu says, lifting his gaze to find Rintarou’s. 

He shrugs coolly. He doesn’t know what runs through Osamu’s mind. It’s a stark difference compared to high school. 

“It’s complicated,” Rintarou says eventually, because there’s nothing else to say. It feels like anything he says is a failing answer.

Atsumu stares back at him, tries to find something in Rintarou’s dismissal, searches for an answer like it's a treasure hunt. But all he finds is probably a whole lot of nothing. He runs a hand through his mousse-slick hair and sighs. “Do ya know about the morning I proposed to Omi? It wasn’t pretty, and I haven’t actually told anyone else ‘sides ‘Samu. I got sick with the flu and had an ear infection. The doctor wouldn’t let me get out of bed. I couldn’t even tell the coach in person that I had to take time off from practice—Omi had to do that for me. 

“That night, I laid in this bedroom, sleeping on that fucking plank, and I felt like I was gonna _die_ . I couldn’t breathe through my nose, so I had to wheeze like a kid that needs his inhaler every five seconds. I was hot and sweaty and gross, and believe me when I tell ya you didn’t want to get near me. _I_ wouldn’t want to be near me. 

“Throughout the night, I felt like someone was getting up next to me. Couldn’t see, of course, my eyes were fucking bloated, too, but I could tell someone was there. Thought maybe it was a ghost, or maybe a long-forgotten neighbor from when we first moved in, because it sure wasn’t going to be the person from the room next door. 

“I think I called out to Omi a few times. Just like the whiny kind. The kind that ya do when yer just laying in your own pool of yuck, and suffer. Didn’t expect him to show up, of course, cause this is exactly what he’s terrified of. It was a miracle he even stayed in the same apartment with me that night.

“But then when I woke up the next morning, I…,” Atsumu trails off. He’s holding back a choke. “Do you know what I saw that morning, Suna? It was _Omi_ . _He_ was the one taking care of me that night, and I just—” Atsumu tears up. “He _hates_ germs, and he hates doing things he doesn’t have to. Ya know Omi. He’s not a… a…”—he tries to find the words and then air quotes them—“a ‘new experience’ kind of guy.”

Rintarou smirks fondly. “‘The Good Place’?”

“Yeah,” Atsumu grins back. “It’s good.” 

“I know.” He wonders if Osamu ever kept watching it after they stopped in the middle of the first season back in December. 

Atsumu returns, starry-eyed. “His comfort zone is _literally_ limited to the space in our room. I’m the one invading it constantly. It wouldn’t surprise me if he ever chose to just lock himself in his room and never come back out. But he does—he does, and he tries, and I am so _fucking proud_ and _thankful_ to have him in my life.

“When I saw him that morning, with his hair sticking in all directions while his mask was pulled up to his eyes, sitting like a sleepy statue in this chair rolled up next to the bed, I just— I _knew_ that that was it. He was the one for me. 

“He took care of me that night even when I was sick, and when he woke up he forced me back in bed and made me breakfast. He’s terrible at cooking, but he tried. He tried _for me_. And at that moment, I could see my whole future with him, waking up everyday beside the man who literally braved through sickness and health with me. I didn’t even have a ring, but I proposed right there, sick in bed, and to this day I keep finding myself surprised that he said yes,” Atsumu says, his expression tender and soft. It makes Rintarou wonder when the last time he saw Osamu looked like that was. 

“I didn’t think marriage was for me,” he continues, glancing outside, and the sun takes on a whole new light. “It’s not even legally recognized here. Hell, only a few prefectures even _acknowledge_ that we exist. But I wanted him to know that I was in this for the long haul. That this wasn’t like all those years when he was still in college, and I was cities away barely making it to call him before he went to sleep at night. We’re both here now, in the same place, at the same time, and I’m never letting go, not again. I want to live _with_ him. And I wanted to let him know that in the most permanent way possible,” Atsumu ends, sighing softly. 

There’s a creak at the doorway, and Rintarou turns to see Sakusa standing there, looking so dreadfully and unabashedly in love with Atsumu. 

Atsumu blinks, seemingly still lost in the haze of his memories. “Omi, what’s up? Do ya need something?” 

Sakusa shifts, and Rintarou can tell there’s a reluctance in his body language because of the middle blocker’s presence in the room, but his eyes are steadfast on Atsumu’s. “I just got off the phone with the caterer. They wanted to know if anyone on the guest list was gluten intolerant. Miya, you…”

It’s a beautiful moment when you witness two individuals fall in love with each other all over again. There are times when stress may pull the rose-colored lenses off, but then one simple act or one single word can make the world seem aflutter again, and before you know it, it’s like it’s the first time you two have laid eyes on each other, and the warmth kindles deep in your stomach. 

Rintarou feels like he’s intruding on something private, on something that should be saved for the actual ceremony, but it manifests here between the walls of this home these two have built together. 

As Sakusa walks over to Atsumu, almost like he’s being pulled in by a magnet, now seemingly blind to Rintarou’s presence in the room, Rintarou slyly sneaks out, leaving the two to their own conversation. It seems like one they both need. 

He pours himself a glass of water from the kitchen sink, then just lets it sit there on the counter as he hunches over the counter, solemn.

He and Osamu have been together for close to seven years. In all that time, they’ve rarely had fights. They aren’t emotional people; they aren’t needy. They’re just them. 

Is it wrong to be fine with where they are now? Is it wrong that, unlike Atsumu and Sakusa who have their own boundary-breaking close-proximity relationship, he and Osamu live just fine half a country and half their lives apart? Evidently not, judging from Atsumu’s long speech on bagging the man of his life. 

There was once a time when Rintarou thought he could see a future with Osamu, a glimmering one that wasn’t too different from Atsumu’s own wish to wake up every morning next to his soon-to-be husband, but that dream shattered quickly. 

It terrifies him that though for the first time he’s trying to see a future with Osamu, he can’t see beyond a tomorrow, or a tonight, or even the next minute. 

The floorboards creak, and Rintarou looks up for the second time that day to see one half of the reality he’s slowly starting to realize. 

“Sorry about that,” Atsumu says, not at all sheepish. He looks love stricken, happy. There’s a bite mark on his cheek. “I wasn’t trying to brag or anything back there.”

“So you’re here to brag now,” Rintarou replies drily, standing just a little straighter. 

Atsumu chooses to ignore the snide comment and leans against the counter with Rintarou. “Be real with me for once. I just— ‘Samu’s my brother, and yer my best friend.”

“Out of seven.”

“Does it matter?” Atsumu groans, before quickly sidling back. “As much as I hate to compare myself to ‘Samu, we got a lot of similarities. Our type of long-suffering relationship, for one.”

“And your face, two. The end.” 

Atsumu bristles. But then his expression turns serious. “I just— Have ya never considered coming down to Osaka? Ya know we got a great team here—champions, might I add—and, well, it’s a lot closer to ‘Samu.” 

“Yeah,” Rintarou says, curling his hands over the counter top. His hands feel cold. “Yeah, and no.” 

“Yeah and no what?”

Rintarou doesn’t answer that. Doesn’t think about the fact that Atsumu is giving him this look that tells him the blond man has suddenly gained new wisdom and maturity over the years while Rintarou doesn’t know how to take it. He doesn’t think about the fact that maybe he’s been going about everything wrong and has screwed himself over in the process. 

What he wants instead is to leave and act like he didn’t hear Atsumu pouring his heart out, because then he can at least pretend. Pretend like maybe everything’s fine. Maybe it’s not. 

Komori pokes his head in at that saving moment, unperturbed by the grave air, and chirps, “So are we getting our suits measured, or what?”

Rintarou breathes. Atsumu shoots him a look that tells him this conversation isn’t over. 

The tension eases, but Rintarou doesn’t. 

\--

The shop is quiet. The last customer had vacated the building well over an hour ago, and from what Rintarou can tell, the deputy chef Chiaki had just left through the back alley riding on his neon blue moped. Nice. 

“‘Samu?” Rintarou calls out after opening the front door. It gives way with a small jingle of a bell. 

He hears a shuffle from the back as he sets down the fancy bag with his newly tailored groomsman suit at one of the barstool counters. Osamu peeks his head out a moment later, his hand wrapped inside a dish towel. 

“Rin? What’re ya doing here? Ya were supposed to be at ‘Tsumu’s,” he says, like he’d been in constant contact with Rintarou this entire time. All the ‘read’ messages sting worse than he thought. 

He walks over to Osamu, stops, and grazes his fingers across his boyfriend’s forehead, brushing aside the bangs clumped in sweat from standing in a kitchen all day. He gazes softly at him. 

Osamu lets him touch him, which Rintarou takes to be a good sign. 

“You expect me to suffer there while I have my own personal AirBnB at your place? As if,” he grins, pecking the top of his boyfriend’s hat. “I feel bad for Komori, though. They offered him their second bedroom, but he chose to shack up in a business hotel tonight. I think he’s scared from the time he stayed there last year.”

Osamu hums as Rintarou hugs him. He smells like chives. And a little bit like lavender dish detergent. 

“Ya didn’t have to come to the shop, though,” Osamu says, pulling back. His eyes are cloudy. Rintarou quickly shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“Are you angry?”

“What would I be angry about?” 

“You seem to be angry a lot these days.” 

Osamu furrows his brows. “And how would _you_ know?”

Rintarou shrugs, at a loss. “Are you still upset about the investor? It’s just one man, ‘Samu. There are others out there.” 

“Goddammit,” Osamu mutters before he’s slamming his dish towel to the table. He’s louder then. “It’s not just the investor, Rin.”

“Then what?” Rintarou says, and he feels like he’s at the end of his rope, that the rope has been dwindling since a long time ago. “ _What_ is this about? You won’t see me, you won’t talk to me. I don’t know what’s going through your mind.” He hasn’t for a while. “Tell me, ‘Samu.” 

He snorts. “Yeah, cause those memes ya send are just great conversation lead-ins.”

“I thought you liked them.” That’s why he always sent them. 

“Rin,” Osamu says, and he’s quieter this time. He breathes in deeply like he’s preparing to plunge into the deep end, and it’s all Rintarou can do to keep himself from falling in with him. “Aren’t ya tired of this?” 

His hands grow cold. “This…?”

“ _This_ ,” Osamu says, gesturing vaguely to the air. Then he gestures to the space between _them_. “Us,” he says weakly. 

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m saying—” Osamu starts, but then he stops as if he’s holding himself back. His eyes are watery, and his expression, sunken. Rintarou has never seen him look so defeated. Osamu chokes. “I’m saying, I think that we should break up.”

“I don’t get what this has to do with everything that’s happened. If this is because you’re upset about not getting that Tokyo location, then I told you I can—”

“ _It’s not just that!”_ Osamu shouts. He’s hunched over, leaning against the counter like it’s the only thing keeping him standing. “Rin, don’t ya get it? _This_ isn’t working! _We_ are not working! That investor shit was just the ending. This, all of this, has been coming for a long time, and I don’t think I can do it anymore.”

“Do _what_ anymore? We haven’t even done anything!”

“ _That’s exactly my point_ ,” Osamu stresses. Rintarou feels like he’s crumbling. “We _aren’t_ doing anything. We never do anything, because yer all the fucking way in Tokyo while I’m stuck in Osaka, and two and a half hours means a big difference between whether I’m able to call ya up to go shopping, or to beg ya to come down and listen to me while I rant to ya for a good hour about nothing. 

“Sometimes,” he says, taking his cap off and running his hand through his hair, distressed, “I feel like I don’t even got a boyfriend. Do you know what my aunt asked me the other day? She asked me if I wanted her to set me up with her coworker’s daughter, now that ‘Tsumu’s getting married. _Me._ Fuck, Rin, I’m not even _into_ girls, but she doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know that I like boys, or that I’ve got _you._ I’ve had a longer relationship with you than ‘Tsumu’s had with Sakusa, but no one knows about it because they never see ya. _I_ never see ya.

“And ya don’t even care about the fact that that lousy investor dumped me. Ya make it seem as if it’s not yer problem, when the whole reason I was fighting so badly for it in the first place was so we could be together. But ya don’t even care. Ya tell me that I’m still young and that I’ve still got time, but time is exactly what I’m afraid of. How many more years do I gotta live like this? Two, five, ten? We’ve already been doing this for seven—does that mean I’ve gotta live apart from ya for half of my life before I get to live _with_ you?” Osamu says, tears running down his face as he tries to wipe them away. 

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Rintarou asks, helpless. 

“ _Nothing!_ Ya can’t do _anything_ ,” Osamu cries. 

Rintarou swallows. “I could move down. You don’t have to go to Tokyo, I’ll come to Osaka instead.”

“Rin,” Osamu says slowly, and he’s given up trying to pick up the tears that have fallen, “if that was ever on the table, ya would have come to Osaka a long time ago. Can ya honestly tell me that ya would uproot yerself for me? _Now_? I don’t want that, and neither do you.” 

Rintarou’s always loved Tokyo, from the time long before he picked up and moved to Hyogo before returning back to his hometown. All of his friends and family are there—well, most of them anyway—and Osamu knows this, has always known this. 

Which is why he can’t bring himself to deny it. 

“Then I’ll make more trips down here,” he says, trying to scramble for even a sliver of hope. “I’ll come down here every weekend during the off-season, and I’ll take days off of work. I’ll FaceTime you instead of sending you pictures. I’ll make it so your aunt will finally realize I exist.” 

“Rin, no—” Osamu mumbles, shaking his head.

“What? Why won’t you _try_ with me?”

Osamu runs his hands down his face. He looks like a soldier come back from a losing battle. 

The restaurant is quiet save for the air conditioning, but all Rintarou hears is his heart dying.

Finally, Osamu says, “I can’t keep feeling like I’m breaking up with ya a little more every single time you leave me.” It’s accompanied with grave sobriety. He stops crying. The tears shine like glitter. “It’s exhausting. Having to go back on my own when I visit Tokyo. Or recuperating by myself in an empty apartment when you leave Osaka. I’ve had seven years of practice, but instead of getting better, it feels like I lose a bit of myself every time it happens.”

“I…” And finally, Rintarou is truly at a loss for words. He can’t argue with his boyfriend, or even comfort him. What is he supposed to do? 

Osamu breathes in deeply again, except this time it doesn’t feel like he’s about to plunge into the deep end; it feels like he’s preparing to drown. And Rintarou follows right after him.

“We have our own lives, Rin. Maybe we’re just not meant to be in each other’s.” 

Rintarou swallows. His throat constricts. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“What if I’m not?”

Osamu looks at him, steady. “ _I’m_ sure.” 

Rintarou blinks, the situation finally catching up to him. He places his hand on the counter, right where he placed his garment bag, and he runs it over like he’s smoothing out the wrinkles. “So that’s it then? We’re done? After seven years?”

Osamu shudders. “Rin, I…”

“Did you know back in December?” he asks quietly. Osamu freezes. Rintarou takes it as a yes, but he asks anyway, wanting to be absolutely sure. “Did you know back in December, back when the investor was still leading you on, that if it didn’t work out you would break up with me?” That was the time they had talked about marriage. Now look where they are. 

Probably against his better judgment, Osamu lets out a shaky breath and says, “Yeah.” He nods like it’s someone else’s hand guiding him to move his head. “Yeah. I did.” 

And because Rintarou can’t help but still ask, “Do you still love me?”

Osamu starts crying again. “I do.”

“And yet you want to let go of all of this?” he asks, balling his hand in the fabric of the garment bag. 

Admittedly, bravely, or maybe stupidly, or even deliriously, Osamu smiles as fresh tears stain his cheeks. “They say that if ya love someone, then set them free. If I set ya free, then ya gotta do the same for me.”

Rintarou’s shoulders slump. “You made it to the third season?”

“Yeah. I wanted to let ya know, but…” 

But he was planning to break up with Rintarou. 

Rintarou lowers his head. “Can we… Can we still be friends? Are we allowed to?”

It’s been a long time since he was “just friends” with Osamu. He’s been in love with him since their second year in high school. He doesn’t even know if he remembers how he was before then. All of their friends say they didn’t act differently after they got together, but it never felt that way to him. Once they got together, the whole world shifted. 

“Rin,” Osamu says pained. Oh. That’s not good, Rintarou thinks. “I’ve been in love with ya for the better part of my life. It’s gonna be a long time before I can start thinking of ya as anything other than what we’ve been.”

“Oh.” Rintarou blinks, uncomprehending. It’s like he’s aware of what’s happening, but it’s all an outsiders’ perspective. “Okay.”

Osamu looks uncomfortable as he has to say the next part. “Do ya… Do ya have somewhere to crash tonight?”

Rintarou freezes.

 _Right_ , he thinks, unsteadily. It’d be like breaking Osamu’s newfound resolution if he were to stay over tonight. He also doesn’t know what he might do if he said no. 

So he says yes. “I can stay somewhere else.” 

“Okay.”

“Can I kiss you one last time?” he asks, because if he can’t feel Osamu one last time, it’ll feel like these last seven years never existed. 

Osamu shakes his head no. 

“Then can I hug you?”

Reluctantly, Osamu says yes. 

He smells like chives and lavender detergent, and there’s a part of Rintarou that thinks he smells himself on Osamu, but when he pulls back, the shirt is assuredly not his. Osamu took all of his clothes, and his heart, and he returns them with an empty IOU. 

He picks up his things and makes his way gingerly to the door. 

“Rin,” Osamu says, like he’s calling out to stop Rintarou before they both make the biggest mistake of their lives. It gives him inane hope, like a reverse UNO card, playing him for the fool. But what comes out of his former boyfriend’s mouth is, “You’ll be fine. Ya’ve always been fine. You’ll get through this better than I will, and… Just, take care of yerself.”

Rintarou nods vaguely, and then he steps out the door, the bells singing goodbye as he walks into the dark. 

\--

He makes it all the way to the door of Komori’s business hotel room—the same one he messaged Rintarou when Rintarou sent an SOS—before he breaks down on the ground sobbing as his teammate swings open the door. 

Through the fuzz and the haze, he thinks maybe Komori asks him what’s wrong, or what happened, but more likely than not, he already knows the answer, _has_ known the answer since the day Rintarou told him about when Osamu began ignoring all of his texts. His teammate’s response would otherwise be icy, but in this moment, all Komori can do is lead the sniveling man inside his room, and look out for him to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. 

He bawls on the bed like a child, and it’s the first time he’s ever been so emotional in his life. Komori can’t even begin to comfort him. 

_He’ll be fine, he’ll be okay. He’s always been okay._

That’s the biggest lie he’s ever been told. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Is anyone else thrown off course by the new information Furudate-sensei just released? I headcanoned Suna as an only child, but apparently he has a little sister (who is not in this story btw). I had to quickly change his childhood home from Suginami to Aichi, though that probably means shit since I already laid out his entire backstory in this chapter. 
> 
> TW: Someone makes the wrong assumption that another character is planning to jump off a building, but this is just a comical misunderstanding. Just a heads up. 
> 
> TW #2: Mentions of an eating disorder. This one is real. Not a huge emphasis placed on it though.

[July, 2019]

Being single for the first time in seven years is weird. It’s like leaving your parents’ home once you graduate high school. On one end, it liberates you from a weight you didn’t even realize you were carrying, and on the other hand, you miss it dearly. You realize so many things you took for granted, the things that still tie you to your home, and before you know it, you’re back at their front door. 

He can’t do this for Osamu, of course. He can’t just show up out of nowhere after they’ve broken up and chill in his apartment like nothing between them has changed, because it _has_. A lot has changed. 

So what he does instead is return to his parents’ home in Tokyo. 

After he graduated from Inarizaki, his parents returned back to Tokyo on the same job transfer as what pulled them to the recesses of the countryside. Now they live in a popular residential neighborhood in Nakameguro. 

It’s about a thirty to forty minute train ride from his apartment in Sendagaya, and while that should normally be a turn-off for the energy-saving man, he now spends most of his days lazing on his parents’ couch, or pulling the weeds from his mother’s garden if she gripes at him enough. 

It’s obvious from the way his parents give him looks when he shows up that they’re filled with questions, but it seems to be a shared trait in the Suna household to not ask. Instead, his dad asks him to come to the recreational center to play badminton with his colleagues, and his mom, instead of asking what’s been bubbling toward the top of her cup, just makes him more food than he can stand to eat. 

It surprises all of them when, for the first time since childhood when Rintarou bruised himself badly at the neighborhood park falling off a tree, Rintarou eats his mother’s cooking and cries. 

He feels fortunate to have understanding parents who don’t hesitate to crowd around him in a bear hug. 

He goes to the gym and he goes to practice. Sometimes Komori comes over to Rintarou’s parents’ place just to check up on him. The libero was surprised when he found out that Rintarou barely spent any time at his own apartment anymore. 

“I got the place because I could see ‘Samu in every nook, but now it’s just painful,” he had told Komori when the man asked. He wonders if he should start looking for a subleaser.

His schedule becomes routine: go work out, go to practice, find a bookstore or a park bench to kill some time in, grab more clothes from his apartment until practically his entire closet has relocated to his parents’ house, spend time with family, and then go to sleep before repeating it all the next day. Just like that, June passes by, and now it’s July. 

Atsumu called him in the beginning.

“Suna, ya broke up with ‘Samu?” Atsumu yelled through the receiver. It was six am, and he was pretty sure he heard a door slam in there somewhere, probably Atsumu making it back to his apartment in the early stretches of the morning. 

Rintarou felt like dying, it was too early for anything. “Well, it was the other way around, but yeah. We broke up.”

“Why didn’t ya tell me? Why do I have to find out through asking ‘Samu if placing you two next to Bo and Shouyou-kun at the wedding reception would be okay?”

“You asked him at 6 am? In person?” 

“He wakes up at fucking 4:30 am. He tells me not to bother customers at the store with my annoying face—we have the same fucking face. But enough about that, what happened?”

Rintarou sighed. He could at least get up to make coffee. “Shit happened. It wasn’t working out, so we broke up. Ask your brother. He’s closer to you.”

“I’m close to you, too,” Atsumu said defiantly. 

Oh. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that Atsumu might not take his brother’s side in all of this. 

It should be laughable, staying best friends with your ex’s brother. And it was, so he gave a rueful grin. 

“Stop laughing!”

Rintarou stopped grinning immediately. “I’m not.”

“I can still hear ya even if ya aren’t!” Another door slammed, and this time it’s the financier of their fancy apartment. He heard a few angry hisses, then a “sorry, Omi, I’ll keep it down,” before Atsumu returned back to the call. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s not a big deal.” It was only 6 am in the morning, and he hadn’t had his coffee yet, so he could sympathize with whoever had to put up with Atsumu’s racket before the sun had woken up. 

“But seriously, how are you?” Atsumu asked, and his voice was softer this time. 

It wasn’t a “are you okay” or a “it’ll get better” like everyone has been telling him. Just a simple, “how are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” Rintarou found himself answering honestly. 

“Shit, Suna,” Atsumu cursed. “If it makes ya feel better, ‘Samu doesn’t seem all that great either. Well, not like he ever is.”

Rintarou deadpanned. “Wow. Thanks. That takes a load off my mind, knowing he’s suffering.”

“Hey, I’m trying to be sympathetic here!” Another slam—this time, the wall. “Sorry, Omi! Okay, but seriously, do ya, like, want me to talk some sense into ‘Samu or what? I mean, I just don’t get it. He was bonkers about you—crazy, actually. And then, what, seven years down the drain? He’s not thinking straight.”

“Atsumu,” Rintarou groaned. He couldn’t live through this conversation again. He was trying to forget about the list of reasons, in fact. 

“ _No_ , I’m telling ya that ya guys can still work things out. Just let me talk to him and—”

Rintarou cut Atsumu off before the damage became irreparable. “It’s over, Atsumu. We’re done. I’m not even going to try.” 

“...Are ya serious?” Atsumu asked quietly, a dead anger in the rear. “Low-energy, my ass, yer just a coward. Ya won’t even fight for him.”

“Sure. Let’s put it that way,” he said, drained. No matter how he thought about it, there was some truth in Atsumu’s words, but it also hurt to keep thinking about the fact that he had _wanted_ to try. But what was he supposed to do? Cling onto Osamu pathetically? 

Atsumu must’ve heard something in his voice to make him back off, or maybe it was just the 6 am energy drain performing, but he dropped the argument to Rintarou’s surprise. Instead, he asked, “Are ya guys gonna be okay for the wedding?”

Rintarou wanted to slap himself. He completely forgot that he and Osamu were both part of Atsumu’s entourage of best men. “ _Fuck_ , Atsumu, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about that. I don’t want us to get in the way of your big day, so if you have to drop me or something to keep things from getting awkward, then—”

“What the fuck, Suna? That’s not what I’m asking. _‘Course_ I want you to stay as my best man. Who the hell’s supposed to make me look better in front of Omi? No, ya dimwit, I’m asking if _you_ are okay with staying on. ‘Samu kind of left it up to ya,” he ended awkwardly. 

Even after the break-up, Osamu put Rintarou first. 

He felt like being shot through with a machine gun. 

He took a deep breath. God, heart-to-hearts were terrible with Atsumu. It was like suddenly being fact-checked on big business by an 8-year-old at a birthday party. It just wasn’t a thing—at least not a thing that he could comfortably be proud of, though he was grateful. 

“I want to see you married at your happiest, Atsumu. If it means having both me and ‘Samu by your side as two-sevenths of your male collection, then that’s exactly what we’ll do,” Rintarou said. 

“Oh, _fuck you_ ,” Atsumu said, but it sounded like he was tearing up. Six am calls will do that to you. “Ya know I don’t collect ugly-looking figures. What would make me happiest is if you two get your shit figured out so that ‘Samu will finally stop glaring at me like I’m a rodent coming in to steal all of the rice Kita-san just sent. But are ya sure yer okay with this?”

Rintarou gripped his phone tighter and just thought about the fact that as soon as he found out, Atsumu dropped everything and called him at 6 am in the morning to make sure his friend was okay. When did the man become so reliable?

“Yeah,” he said, and it sounded less like trying to convince Atsumu anymore and more like trying to convince himself. “I’ll be fine.” 

Since then, Atsumu has continuously kept him updated on his wedding. He brought up Osamu a few more times, all to no avail, but then after that, no more. 

\--

Meguro River is nearby his parents’ house. It’s a river that cuts close to the border of Meguro and Minato City, and when spring comes around every year, the cherry blossoms are beautiful. It’s summer now, though, so the leaves are green, but they’re not any less pleasant to look at. 

He spends most afternoons walking along the river, greeting familiar small shops he’s come to memorize during his stay at his parents’. Sometimes friendly neighbors recognize him and wave; sometimes, amid his lost and dejected thoughts, he remembers to wave back. 

But he’s been trying. He’s really been trying. Vitamin D is supposed to be good for depression, which is also just heartbreak in general, so he bides his time outside, soaking up every drop of sunlight like he’s a flower reaching for the sky. In some ways, it does help. His mood brightens when he forces himself to be active outside, and he’s finally starting to get that tan all the boys in Hyogo had when he never did because he stayed in the cold, air conditioned rooms of his house instead outside in the sweltering temperatures of Hyogo farmland. 

But then there are times when not even the sun can assuage the dark clouds in his head, so he ducks inside a Starbucks for a few hours, letting the caffeine drip numb his brain slowly, before heading back out, renewed with a duller lease on life. 

During those moments, it’s not easy to resist the pull toward the train station, just a one-way ticket on the Tokaido line before hopping off on Shin-Osaka station, a two and a half hour distance from where he is. 

But he resists; he avoids the twitch to buy a ticket on his phone, and then he stops looking in that general direction altogether. And true to Osamu’s prediction, it gets easier. 

\--

He invites Komori to play recreational badminton with his dad’s friends. At first, the libero stares at him like two fish just popped out of the sides of his head, but when Rintarou starts walking away, the libero sputters and says, “Wait, wait, wait—you were _serious_?”

Rintarou just gives him a blank stare. 

The men that his dad plays with are all colleagues from work. They used to work together before his dad moved away on a job transfer, but miraculously enough for middle-aged men, they kept in contact, so as soon as the Suna family moved back, his dad was reintegrated into the group as if he had never left at all. 

He wonders if that’s a trait of the Suna men, being able to ghost in and out of people’s lives. Should he be grateful that people so readily accept him into their lives, or should he be upset that his absence leaves behind no hole?

He doesn’t have much time to ponder the thought long though, because he is getting absolutely _pummeled_ by a couple of old men in their 50s. 

Komori is conked out on the ground, splayed out like a pig on a wide platter, meanwhile Rintarou feels like he’s been put through a harsher workout than anything the coach gives them at practice. 

Rintarou wipes the sweat from his face with his shirt, revealing his toned stomach, and he hears a few hoots from his dads’ colleagues as they point out the obviously embarrassed women’s badminton team practice on the other side of the recreational center. Some of them are quite young, maybe high schoolers. He guesses that must mean summer break is here. 

“Look at them, fawning over him even though we just wiped the floor with your son! They may not have taste, but they certainly have eyes! Haha!” one of his dad’s coworkers—his name is Sato-san—laughs. 

“You idiot,” says another coworker—Ito-san, this time. He’s one of the younger associates from his dad’s workplace. Maybe mid-thirties. “Of course they have taste. That’s why they chose _him_ ! Do you actually think girls _like_ beer bellies, huh?” he grins, rubbing Sato-san’s pudgy stomach as Sato-san shouts indignantly about seniority. 

Takagi-san, the more genial member of the group as well as the oldest, who’s been refereeing this entire time, breaks them up and says, “Stop talking about him as if he isn’t here. That’s rude to Suna-kun.” 

Rintarou, embarrassingly, feels touched. That is, until Takagi-san begins forcefully lifting Ito-san into the air like he’s a cat in order to drag him away from Sato-san. 

“Besides,” Takagi-san says as Ito-san and Sato-san growl at each other from opposite ends of the badminton court. Rintarou tries to remember that these are old men, not children in elementary school. “Suna-kun probably doesn’t want their attention. I’m sure he already has a girlfriend.”

Of the six men standing on the court, three stiffen. Komori smudges his cheek against the wax floor and looks up at Rintarou, his eyes asking if he’d rather Komori handle this. But he’s neither a child or a person in need of bailing out; he’s not afraid of owning up to his own sexuality. 

The problem only comes from whether or not it’ll affect his dad’s relationship with them. 

He’s fully prepared to make up some bullshit, or just laugh along—whatever fuckery he has to do to preserve his dad’s reputation, but then he feels a steady hand on his shoulder, and when he looks up, it’s his dad’s face smiling softly back up at him. There’s nothing that shies away from his son in his prideful gaze. 

“He has a partner, actually,” his dad corrects, and it’s with failing grace that Rintarou resists the urge to hug his dad. 

“You see,” Takagi-san says chidingly to Ito-san and Sato-san. “He already has a partner. Suna-kun, you should bring your partner to play in our matches someti…” 

He sees the moment when it registers on the older man’s face that what was said wasn’t the conventional “girlfriend” or “lover,” but “partner,” though Rintarou himself prefers “boyfriend.” The other two stare at him mutely. 

Rintarou nods, his focus trained on his dad’s steady hand still gripping his shoulder as if to give him courage, and he says slowly, “Yeah. I’ll let him know, as long as you’re okay with that.”

A quick phrase, a few snaps, and an unfortunate amount of segueing jokes later (courtesy of Komori regaining his HP), the players on the court return to something of an amiable atmosphere that they’d had before they’d been interrupted with the tangential conversation. 

Rintarou doesn’t know if he should be thankful for the strange Japanese custom of people ignoring phenomena they consider foreign or incomprehensible, or if he should yell to the stratosphere that it’s okay to talk about it because he has no qualms about being gay, and neither should they, but he doesn’t say anything.

The last few matches to 21 points go by quickly. Komori and Rintarou can’t even begin to keep up with the spritely old men, and his exhaustion shows when Rintarou leans his head down on his dad’s shoulder during the train ride back. 

Komori got off at the station before—his dad’s colleagues two stations before that one; now it’s just the two of them, sitting in a train car that’s for the most part devoid of living humans other than them. 

He hasn’t so immaturely sought his dad’s touch since he was a child. Now, he presses his nose against his dad’s sweaty sports jacket, and it smells like the park from his childhood home in Aichi. 

“I’m sorry for their behavior,” his dad says after a while. The train sways gently. The sun is beginning to set. 

“Why are _you_ sorry? Ya can’t help idiocy,” Rintarou says, feeling no remorse whatsoever about insulting his dad’s friends. His dad chuckles. The vibrations make him feel warm and safe. 

“Just three years in Hyogo, and the Kansai dialect only hits you _now_ , Rintarou? It’s a little late, don’t you think?” His dad smiles. 

“Oh god,” Rintarou groans, as he buries his face deeper. “I’ve been infected.”

“No,” his dad says, and there’s a bit of merry in his eyes as he pats Rintarou’s head. Rintarou peeks up. It’s been a long time since his dad has been able to see the top of his head. “Just adapting. I’m sure Osamu-kun appreciates it, too. His rubbing off on you.”

It occurs to Rintarou just then that he hasn’t told his parents about the break-up. 

His voice catches. He’s not sure if he’s ready to have _that_ conversation with them yet. “It’s probably because of Atsumu, actually. He’s been calling me a lot these days for his wedding.”

“Is that so? I’ve always wondered why you chose to come play in Tokyo when you could have been teammates with your friend.”

They’re talking now, and there’s an implied question in there that Rintarou’s dad doesn't ask, but he knows he wants to. Why is the “no questions” policy implemented in the first place? What’s wrong with just asking to learn about each other’s lives?

“I could’ve gone to Hokkaido, too. That’s where Aran plays.” 

“No, I don’t think you would have,” his dad replies like he just _knows_. And maybe he does. He’s been told that he and his dad are on similar wavelengths most of the time. “If it’s between your friend, and your boyfriend’s brother—who also happens to live in the same city as your boyfriend—then I’d be a fool to not place a bet on your boyfriend.”

Rintarou’s chest clenches. His voice quiets, a soft contemplation. “Dad, do you think I made a mistake?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, voice tinged with surprise. It’s the first time Rintarou has asked a personal question.

“Living my life, running away, backing down, anything to do with just not being _there_ ,” Rintarou says, muffling his voice with his sleeve, the sob already catching in his voice. He’s been losing it a lot in front of his parents lately. It’s a miracle they haven’t checked him in to see a therapist yet. 

His dad thinks about his answer for a while, but when he speaks again, it’s to ask, “Do you think you would have been happier in another city?”

“I don’t know,” Rintarou says truthfully. He’s been trying to think of all his actions the past seven years that’s led him to this point, but every single time he tries, he overthinks and ends up in a worse depressive state than before. “Maybe, maybe not. I didn’t want to leave Tokyo. But I never considered what it would mean if I continued to _stay_.” 

His dad purses his lips. Rintarou used to look up at his dad all the time back when they lived in a small apartment in Suginami. When his dad took business calls or had colleagues over, his answers always took a while, but in the end were brimming with care and sincerity. He was never the instigator, but always the quiet, thoughtful listener. 

After a while, his dad comes to an answer, pensive and genuine. “Ten years ago, your mother and I made the decision to move to Hyogo on my company’s job transfer. I wasn’t actually supposed to be the one transferred out.”

Rintarou sits up, alarmed. He blinks. “What? What do you mean?”

His dad smiles softly, as if reminiscing, while he twirls his fingers together in his lap. “Initially, the job transfer was offered to Takagi-san, the one we played with today. He was a good friend of mine—still is, untactful responses to my son’s partner aside. But his mother was suffering from severe depression and his father had passed away many years before that, so he didn’t want to leave her by herself. They were living apart at the time, so he couldn’t exactly bring her with him on the transfer, though it’s not like she probably would have allowed it in the first place. 

“At the time, I was doing well in the company. I didn’t have a reason to leave, but I didn’t have a reason to stay either. I offered to go in Takagi-san’s place. But,” he says, and there was a regretful curl in his lip, “I always wondered if I should have considered it longer before accepting.”

“I don’t get it,” Rintarou says, leaning back in his seat. He crossed his arms across his chest. “It worked out fine, didn’t it? What was there to worry about?”

“Moving away from the rest of our family, for one,” his dad replies. “I didn’t think about the fact that most of our family still lives in Tokyo. And then you, for two.”

Rintarou grips his sleeves tighter. 

His dad continues, gazing softly out the window. The sky is orange. “You were always a quiet child, that was no problem. But you didn’t like change. You preferred familiarity, and getting accustomed to the rules of the game. Yet, the rules out in Hyogo were anything but accustomed for you,” he laughs. “You couldn’t understand a single bit of the Kansai dialect when we first moved. I was worried you were considering dropping out of high school because the teachers sounded like gibberish to you.”

Oh yeah. That did happen. He remembers one girl asking if she could borrow a pencil, and he thought she was asking if she could have his liver. He huffs. 

“Even if I considered it, I wouldn’t have,” Rintarou says, rolling his eyes. “The school’s volleyball team was too good to become a high school dropout.”

His dad chuckles merrily. “Then I’m glad it kept you grounded.”

“Yeah right. Don’t even pretend like mom wouldn’t have dragged me to the principal’s office if I threatened to quit.”

“Ah. Yes, there’s that, too.” 

Rintarou snorts. 

“But,” his dad says, “I’m thankful to the school’s volleyball club for a lot of reasons. You never brought friends home, and you didn’t talk a lot about what you did in school, but I remember the day you unwillingly showed the twins our home clearly.”

“Oh god,” Rintarou groans. He slams his palm against his forehead. “That was a _disaster_ . How, _how_ could you not try to change my mind when I told you I started dating one of them in third year?”

He remembers there being a toaster and a desire to make toasted ice cream sandwiches as suggested in the recipe found online for a rendition on the classic smores, and then suddenly there was a small fire in the kitchen, which _Atsumu_ started and _Osamu_ made worse. That was only the first encounter during his freshman year of high school, so of course there were _plenty_ more incidents after that. 

“I’ll admit, I had my hesitations, though not for the reasons you might think. You and Osamu-kun are just so similar that I wondered if you didn’t mean you were dating Atsumu-kun instead.”

Rintarou shivers. He thinks about the rude 6 am wake-ups and Sakusa’s angry face, and he’s so thankful Sakusa is taking Atsumu off of everybody’s hands. 

“No offense, but— No, full offense to both you and Atsumu. Gross.”

“You’re right. I don’t know if you know, but I follow Atsumu-kun on Twitter—”

_“Twitter?!”_

His dad has Twitter? And he’s only finding out about this now? He just lets his eyes bug out as he contemplates his 50-year-old man scrolling through hashtags and clicking on gifs posted by Gen-Zs. 

“Yes,” his dad says, like the thought of otherwise not being on Twitter is a social mores, “and I must say, it’s a good thing you didn’t go for him. I don’t know how I would feel about a son-in-law who wears shirts with dropped armholes so often. It just seems so meaningless.” 

The fuckboy jock shirt package, right. His dad wants to lower Atsumu’s boyfriend mantle because of his fucking fashion choices for Twitter, and _not_ because he picks petty fights with 13-year-olds about FortNite. His dad has such high standards. 

“Dad,” Rintarou says with full seriousness. “You should block Atsumu.”

“Maybe one day,” his dad says with a hint of stray mischief. Rintarou huffs. Unbelievable. “But I think now I take it back, the thing I said earlier about Atsumu-kun. You and Osamu-kun may be extremely similar, but at the end of the day, you seek comfort in _him_ and not his twin brother. 

“When I watched you boys ruining our kitchen, it was easy to tell where your eyes drew to, who you found comfort seeking shelter behind.”

“I used Osamu as a fucking fire shield.”

“Well” —and his dad didn’t have a good excuse— “yes and yes. But every time you brought the twins back, you only moved if _Osamu-kun_ moved first. Slowly, but surely, that boy opened you up, even though his Kansai accent was thicker than most. I was foolish to even think it was ever the other way.”

“I really liked him,” Rintarou says softly. He stares down at his lap, his fingers clasped together loosely. “I _still_ do,” he admits. Love doesn’t always fade with time; sometimes the cinders continue to burn long after the fire’s been stomped out. 

His father looks at him knowingly. He leans back in his seat, mirroring Rintarou’s posture, and together they watch as the sun’s shadow stretches in the train car. 

“I know,” his dad says. “So the thing about you being happier in another city—maybe you would have, or maybe not. What I do know is that when you told your mother and I of your decision to move back to Tokyo after graduation, it didn’t feel as much of a surprise as it was a subtle realization. 

“You were planning on becoming a professional volleyball player, and your friends had other things in mind. None of you planned on staying in the same place. So in the face of rapid change after graduation, you returned to Tokyo for its familiarity. You didn’t have to follow your mother and I in my job transfer back, but you did. And maybe after the initial period of readjustment, you found it easier to stay.

“Life is like your game of volleyball. You don’t dwell on the mistakes you make in the last game. You focus on the present, on your opponent, and the next point you take back. Wondering about all of the ‘what ifs’ and ‘could have beens’ is like chasing your own tail, wondering when you’ll ever reach it.”

“Aren’t you the one always telling me not to reduce life to a game?” Rintarou asks, but now he simply feels melancholy. And maybe a bit of sardonic levity. 

His dad shrugs. There’s a casualness to it that makes Rintarou feel just a little bit lighter. “It doesn’t mean that life can’t be enjoyable.”

 _Enjoyable_ . Finding enjoyment. Finding pleasure in the little things. Being happy purely because. Maybe that’s what he’s missing. It’s been a while since he’s done something _just because_. 

The train slows down for a gentle stop at the station for his parents’ home. 

His dad stands up to move to the exit, but he gives a confused expression when Rintarou doesn’t join him. 

He has some thinking to do first, alone.

God, he’ll have to relocate his entire closet again. 

“Hey, Dad.”

“Yes?”

“Go ahead and tell Takagi-san I wouldn’t mind playing another game with him. That is, as long as he knows how to respond better next time when I tell him I have a _boyfriend_.” And not a partner. 

Blinking, his dad nods. Then, as the doors begin to open, he breaks out a smile that mirrors Rintarou’s times a hundred. It fills Rintarou with warmth and pride. He'll be okay, he thinks. This time, he'll be just fine.

“I will.”

[August, 2019]

“I don’t like this,” Komori says defiantly as he crosses his arms. He’s wearing a pink polo shirt and blue cargo pants, and he looks like a fashion disaster on Michael Jordan/heelys hybrid. 

Rintarou scrolls through his messages on his phone, sees about a hundred from Atsumu, ignores them, then stuffs his hand and phone in his pocket as he waits for Aran to show up at the foot of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Osaka. Atsumu apparently wanted a wedding in Hyogo, and Sakusa couldn’t stand the idea of dirt, so they “compromised” with the Sakusa family’s fat wallet. 

“Too bad,” Rintarou says dully. “If you wanted a gift receipt for the title of best man, then you should have asked Sakusa-san about three months ago.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” 

“Then what _do_ you mean?”

Komori stares inside of Rintarou’s soul. His eyes are hard. “You _know_ what I mean.”

“Jeez, I’m _fine_ ,” Rintarou huffs. It’s been two months. He can stand to loosen up a little about the elephant in the room. “We’re here for Atsumu’s wedding—”

“And Kiyo’s!”

“Yeah,” he says drily. “And Sakusa’s—”

“He won’t be one starting tomorrow!” 

Thanks for reminding Rintarou that there will not be just one or two Miya’s but _three_ starting tomorrow.

“Yeah, okay, I got it. But we’re here for their wedding, so can you stop acting like your future cousin-in-law just murdered your actual cousin? This messed-up family could stand a little less bloodshed, thanks.” 

Komori pouts and stomps his foot indignantly. “Well, _I’m_ not happy.” 

Rintarou rolls his eyes. “Not asking you to be. The only ones that need to be rainbows and lollipops are the fucking hellhounds pledging their ‘I dos’ tomorrow.”

Their conversation gets interrupted when Aran pulls up in a yellow taxi, and then he and Rintarou are fist bumping and hugging each other like they _didn’t_ just have a practice match last week where the Raijins destroyed the Tachibana Red Falcons. They make small talk and laugh a little, mostly at Atsumu’s expense, before Rintarou gestures for Aran to follow him inside the hotel. 

Komori catches him by the elbow just as the doorman opens the glass doors for Aran to walk through. 

“Suna,” the libero starts. He bites his lip and grips Rintarou’s elbow tighter. Rintarou just raises an eyebrow. Komori sighs, giving up. “Just, just let me know if you _aren’t_ okay, alright? Like that night before, in June when you called me, I’ll drop everything so just, don’t pretend like you’re okay if you’re not.”

He’s come to rely on Komori a lot these past few months. Not just him, but his dad, his mom, Atsumu—it’s freaky how supportive people can be even when you don’t ask for it. 

And because he values his friendship with Komori, he replies enthusiastically. “Sure. We’ll hit up a gym for badminton, and I’ll comfort _you_ when you lose by fifty points.”

Komori throws Rintarou’s elbow aside shamefully. “Oh, _screw you_! You don’t comfort me! All you do is make memes out of me while I lie on the floor like a dried-out seal!”

Rintarou throws his head back and _laughs_. 

“Whatever,” Komori sulks. He starts to hail a cab when he sees Sakusa exit the hotel. “Kiyo and I will just bond over nasty cuticles and scented oils as we talk like _reasonable_ , civil citizens in the salon for his bachelor party.”

“We will do no such thing,” Sakusa says, mercilessly. “I’m getting fucking drunk tonight. Motoya, you’re in charge of making sure I get wasted.”

Then Sakusa grabs Komori by the collar, and he chucks the shorter man inside the awaiting yellow taxi. 

“Wait, but—”

“No buts. Drive,” Sakusa tells the driver when he enters the passenger’s seat. He pauses a second though before rolling down the window, the cab’s engine still humming, as he offers a parting farewell to Rintarou. He looks pissed, somewhat irritated, and maybe a little sympathetic. Rintarou wonders what on earth Atsumu could have done to elicit _this_ reaction. Or at least, he hopes it has to do with Atsumu. Sakusa makes a face like he’s given up on the world, and he tips his head, cringing. “Good luck.”

Then they’re off. 

\--

 _Oh god_ , Rintarou thinks as he watches Atsumu down his tenth shot of vodka for the night. Maybe this was a bad idea. Is it too late to speed-dial Komori for back-up?

Officially, the bachelor party started three hours ago in one of the hotel bars rented out for the night, cost covered exclusively by the Sakusas. Unofficially, the party only _really_ started once Bokuto tore off his shirt, Hinata got his head stuck in a railing, and Aran, Kita, and Ginjima gave up and secluded themselves in a small corner of the untouched bar room, far away from the man of the hour, and unfortunately far away from lending any aide to Rintarou in his time of need. 

“I’m just,” Atsumu hiccups as he wraps a hand around Rintarou’s shoulder, yanking him close until he’s sure the only thing he can smell is Atsumu’s rancid breath, “ _sooo_ happy, Suna. I’m getting married. Me. _Me._ ”

“Uh-huh. Yeah,” he says, placing a hand over Atsumu’s stinky mouth. The man still manages to talk through it. 

“Everyone doubted Omi and I, ya know. All those years, and even now, some people don’t think we’ll last beyond the first month.”

“Yet you somehow managed four years of dating. Congratulations.”

Atsumu buries his face into his chest, sobbing disgustingly. 

Why did Atsumu have to be a crier?

“ _Shut up!_ I know ya were one of them! Ya said we were like two cats ready to claw each other’s eyes out!”

Rintarou grins as he pats Atsumu’s back, comfortingly. “Oh yeah, I did.”

“But we’re not, we’re really not,” Atsumu whines, wiping his snot across Rintarou’s dress shirt. “I mean, _I’m_ not, because Omi _definitely_ is. He’s so cute when he just crawls on yer lap while yer doing work. And even when I tell him to get off so I can type up my email, he just hisses at me and digs into my thighs. He really likes my thighs,” he says, sighing dreamily as he lifts his face off of Rintarou’s shirt to plop it on the bar counter instead. And yet even without sight, somehow Atsumu’s hand unconsciously finds the bottle of vodka left on the table. 

Atsumu is in the middle of pouring himself his eleventh shot of straight ethanol when Osamu comes up from behind and takes it out of his hand. 

“Okay, that’s enough outta ya,” Osamu says. He slaps Atsumu’s face a few times, waking the man up out of his illucid haze like he’s delivering a magical spell, before Atsumu finally regains enough consciousness to blink up at Osamu. 

He grins deliriously, like he’s got a secret. “Omi says he prefers blond.”

“Okay, ya know what—”

“Where are Bokuto and Hinata?” Rintarou asks Osamu, though he doesn’t make eye contact. He very deliberately places his focus on the drunk blond in front of him. 

Osamu, for his part, only looks mildly uncomfortable standing in front of his ex. Is that a win? Who knows.

“Attempting Dance Dance Revolution in the lounge,” he replies stiffly. 

Rintarou summons the courage to look up. “There’s DDR in the lounge?” 

“No.”

Oh. Okay. 

“‘ _Samu_!” Atsumu yells, evidently annoyed that he’s being left out of the conversation. He looks like he’s ready to either fight or throw up. Maybe both. Osamu looks like he’s seen both options too many times to care. Rintarou certainly doesn’t. “Ya stole my pudding.”

“I did not.”

“Then ya stole my jacket.”

“Ya forfeited yer rights to jackets when ya failed to return mine from high school, dummy.”

“Then” —Atsumu racks his brain for a good comeback— “ya stole my best friend!”

“Who? Do ya even have friends?” Osamu jabs. 

“Shut it! I have friends!” he shouts, then he pulls Rintarou by a handful of his shirt and starts waving him around like a department store catalogue. “What’s he then?”

“A stranger ya invited inside with the promise of candy.”

Atsumu gasps loudly, as if he’s just been told a ghastly piece of gossip. “So he’s just a _stranger_ to ya now?! God, ‘Samu, yer just—” Atsumu gets distracted when his phone notification pings and he starts smiling stupidly. It’s probably the _other_ man of the night, getting mani pedis and wasted with his victim-in-waiting: Komori.

Atsumu ambles off to another corner of the room to gloat about _Omi-Omi_ , likely targeting Kita and company, but it’s okay because they’ve gotten off pretty light this entire evening, so they honestly owe Rintarou for looking after the dumbass. 

But then that leaves two.

Rintarou fumbles with his hands on the bar counter. He looks down at his shirt and realizes Atsumu pulled off a couple buttons when he was busy yanking away at his shirt like it was a discount top from Old Navy. Fuck. He looks gross. 

He tries to find a topic of conversation, but suddenly it’s like he doesn’t know what to talk about with Osamu. What are you supposed to say to someone you’ve split up with? How are you? What’s up? Are you enjoying this terrible bachelor party as much as I am, because if so, let’s do a deep-dive on our emotions by making fun of your brother together? 

There are things that they didn’t talk about when they broke up, and one of them was boundaries after they met again. What is he supposed to say? _Can_ he say anything? Is he allowed that?

“Yer tanner now,” Osamu says wistfully like he’s been caught in a daydream. He pulls up a stool at the counter and orders a whiskey on the rocks. He stares at where Rintarou’s collar now dips lower thanks to Atsumu’s fashion remodeling. His elbow bumps with Rintarou’s. 

As Rintarou lets his eyes glance at Osamu, he notices how he’s dressed. Black dress shirt, form-fitting black pants; somehow he looks smaller, maybe a little sharper. Gaunter? Has he been sleeping okay? He wonders if the stress of running his business on his own is finally getting to him. He hopes it’s not taking a toll on his health.

But somehow, he manages to still look good— _unfairly_ good for a bachelor party. He’s clean and smells fresh, like lilac, and since his outfit is different than it was from the beginning of the party, Rintarou figures that Osamu must’ve gone to his hotel room, changed, and come back at some point. 

He hates how, even now, his heart skips a beat when he sees how handsome Osamu is. 

He grabs Atsumu’s deserted vodka bottle and pours himself a glass, downing it in one go. 

“I’ve been taking walks,” he replies, voice muffled in the hand he rests his chin on. “Vitamin D,” he says, like that’ll make any sense to anybody but him. 

“In the summer?” Osamu asks, astonished. Because it’s obvious to anyone that Rintarou hates heat and hates expending energy during hot weather the most. 

“What a miracle, right?” Rintarou laughs, but there’s no mirth. 

It’s not a miracle; it’s not a fucking celebration. And as Rintarou fills another shot glass, he realizes he’s probably still more hung up on everything than he thought. 

“Ya never did like the sun even when I told ya it couldn’t hurt ya,” Osamu says, swirling his glass of balled ice. 

Rintarou snorts. “What? Is this supposed to be a late ‘I told you so’? I’m allowed to do what I want.”

“Ya always do what ya want,” Osamu says, and there’s tension wrapped in there. 

“What do I want then?”

“Ya want everything. Yer like a monster with an insatiable stomach. Ya eat and eat, but ya don’t care about what yer eating.”

“Am I selfish then?” Rintarou asks. He shakes as he holds onto his shot glass, the liquid still brimming. It gets all over his hand. “Are you saying that I’m selfish for wanting everything? For wanting you _and_ everything else? Fine, I got it. It was too much to ask for.”

“Rin—”

That ‘Rin’ gets him. It’s the ‘Rin’ Osamu says when he wakes up in the morning after a sleepover, and both of their hearts fill up at the same time their hearts break when they realize the fantasy will be over in just a few more hours when one of them will inevitably have to leave. 

He slams his hands on the counter and stands up, doesn’t even look at Osamu’s reaction as he takes off. 

He gives Kita and Aran a poor excuse for leaving, but they’re too busy comforting a crying Atsumu to pay him much attention, and just one look at him tells them to leave him alone.

He doesn’t say goodbye to anyone else, doesn’t call Komori, and as he walks out of the bar, he swears he doesn’t look back at Osamu. 

\--

Rintarou has always considered himself to be a level-headed person. He’s snippy, but only if someone deserves it. He’s quiet, but he isn’t demure. He may look detached, but underneath his bored exterior, there’s a man who loves and loves fiercely. So in the end, maybe that last one contradicts himself. 

Because to love fiercely is to love irrationally, to love unconditionally and wholeheartedly until you’re consumed entirely. And in the wake of two months or seven years, he knows that his entire being will continue to love Osamu fiercely, irrationally, and wholeheartedly. 

But it’s a scary thing when you can’t see the end to that kind of love. Where will you be a year from now? Two, three, five? Will it continue devouring you until there’s no kindle left? Until all you’re left with are the ashes? Or will it continue even beyond then? Then after that, you slowly die from a lack of oxygen.

He doesn’t know what happens with a love like his, and that’s terrifying.

\--

The wedding ceremony proceeds with fanfare. 

At first, it’s chaos. 

Rintarou is in charge of helping guests to their seats, getting the string players checked in, and generally making sure that this wedding doesn’t veer terribly off course. 

Which, it very nearly does. 

First, the officiator shows up late. He’s a priest from a nearby Christian church who supports the queer community, but because of afternoon weekend rush-hour traffic in Osaka, he gets there late. Still in time to have his bearings straight for the ceremony a half an hour before it’s supposed to start, but just skimming it enough to make Rintarou want to pull his hair out and scream in anxiety as Kita tries to calm him down. 

Second, one of the grooms goes missing. This is arguably more important. 

And surprisingly, it’s not the groom who pulled an invisible ring out of his ass during an early morning fever fit; it’s the groom who said yes, and because of his aversion to crowds, has the impressive ability to locate vacant hiding spots and disappear until the crowd has dispersed. 

The groomsmen frantically look for him, but when it’s twenty minutes to and no one has spotted sight of Sakusa Kiyoomi (soon to be Miya Kiyoomi, or at least that’s the hope), someone has to break the news to Atsumu. 

It’s not him, thank god, because he doesn’t know if he can handle telling Atsumu his groom might have bailed on him, but instead it’s his twin brother. He doesn’t envy Osamu’s position.

Still, nothing is set in stone until the time comes for both men to show up at the altar, so the group chat is kept vigorously alive, giving real-time updates for both Osamu and Atsumu as all groomsmen scatter up and down the hotel, praying that Sakusa at least hasn’t left the building. 

And that’s when shit goes down in flames, because Rintarou is the first one to find Sakusa on the roof of the building, black coat jacket wrapped around his arm, and standing three feet from the ledge of the overhang as he looks like he’s prepared to jump. 

Rintarou doesn’t think; he just moves. 

He yanks Sakusa back from the ledge and they topple to the concrete ground like dominoes. 

He screams at him. “What the _fuck_ ? Are you _fucking_ with me right now? Do you hate Atsumu so much that you plan to haunt him in the afterlife?”

Sakusa just blinks at him a few times, the minute disgust spreading across his facial features from Rintarou’s touch, when he finally comprehends Rintarou’s words.

His mouth gapes. “What? I—No, that’s not what I—”

“How the fuck are you and Komori even related? He’s weird, but you’re just insane.”

Sakusa narrows his eyes, displeased. “Okay, this and that are two completely different things. I wasn’t planning to jump.”

“Then what were you _doing_?”

The raven-haired man sighs and stands up. Begrudgingly, he offers a hand to Rintarou. Sakusa’s suit jacket is unsalvageable, so he uses it like a hand wipe after tugging Rintarou to his feet. 

“I wasn’t planning to jump,” Sakusa repeats again, quieter this time. His hair is disheveled, and his white shirt is crumpled, but the most distressing feature is the concern on his face. “I was just… thinking.”

“Okay,” Rintarou says, rolling his eyes as he sends a text message to the group chat. He lets Osamu know he found Sakusa on the roof. Atsumu’s probably freaking out. “Think _after_ the wedding, preferably _not_ sixty stories above the asphalt. Or did you forget that you’re kind of needed.”

Sakusa winces. He rubs his forearm uncomfortably. He shifts on his heels, looking down like he’s a child who just got scolded by a parent. “This isn’t the kind of thinking I can do once it’s official.”

“Oh,” Rintarou says. Then his eyes widen, slowly. “ _Oh._ ” He thinks about Atsumu getting left alone at the altar. “You’re second-guessing this. You want to back out.”

“That’s not it,” Sakusa says sharply. He hisses like a cat. “I’m not backing out, I just.” 

“Just what?”

He sighs. He runs a hand through his wavy hair. “I just don’t _know_ if I can match Atsumu’s expectations.”

“What do you mean?” 

Sakusa looks pained, probably over the fact that he has to explain his thoughts to someone like Rintarou. Why couldn’t it be Atsumu or Komori? Or hell, even Kita. The two are probably on stronger wavelengths than he and Sakusa are. Oh, but then there’s the 2016 incident, so maybe not. 

Grimacing, Sakusa speaks. He looks at his feet. “He has this grandiose idea of what marriage means. It means being joined together in the legal sense, sure, but that doesn’t apply to us, so what’s the point to having one in the first place? But to him, it means a promise—a promise to spend our lives together, for better or for worse, to the end. Even if one day I come to hate him, or one day he grows tired of me and leaves, our promise will keep us together.

“But that doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things. People get divorced; in fact, the divorce rate is now higher than ever. And people drift apart for reasons other than love. Knowing what Atsumu thinks of marriage, and knowing the fact that he brings about the absolute worst in me, I don’t know if I can confidently go into this not knowing whether this’ll end well or not,” he ends, looking pensive. 

Sakusa’s eyes are dark—from alcohol, from lack of sleep; maybe it’s a combination of both. He must have been thinking about this all night. Pre-wedding jitters aren’t things you can easily dismiss—not when they hang over you like a heavy curtain. 

To be honest, it’s a little shocking to Rintarou. In his mind, Sakusa is this immovable figure; his every move is marked by careful calculation, and he always has a gameplan, whether it’s how to score past the other teams’ blockers, or it’s what he’ll do non-volleyball-wise post-retirement. 

And despite the fact that Atsumu and Sakusa get along about as well as water and oil on good days, once they’ve made up their minds, they go through with it. They carve out their own future with each other, against the odds. 

While Sakusa was in college, Atsumu visited him; when Atsumu played in the professional league, Sakusa later joined him; when they decided to get married, they decided to choose their future together. 

It’s a little novel to learn that Sakusa is just as unsure as the rest of them. 

Rintarou cocks his head. “First off, Atsumu’s expectations are like his ego. Enormous, but ultimately meant to be taken down a few pegs. I think you’re well-equipped in that regard. Second, is being scared a good reason to leave Atsumu hanging right now? I’m not saying your concerns aren’t valid. They are. And if you didn’t want to marry Atsumu, then, sure, it’s gonna be a pain for me, but I’m his friend, so I’ll listen to him rant about you. But is the future worth giving up what you have right now? It’ll come regardless of whether you have a say or not, so you might as well be happy when it does.”

He realizes that a lot of his own emotions regarding Osamu are bleeding out in this speech.

He may not have been able to see a future with Osamu like the one Atsumu and Sakusa will have, but he knew that he at least had happiness when he held Osamu in his arms. 

“And what if we’re not happy? What if we make each other miserable?”

Rintarou shoves his hands in his pockets. He shrugs. “Isn’t it still worth trying?”

Trying, and failing. Trying, and succeeding. There’s no well-worn path to life. 

Sakusa looks hesitant. “But what if I break our promise?”

“Fuck man, a promise is a promise. Things get broken; they get put back together. But Atsumu will love you forever.”

Until there’s nothing but ashes. 

Sakusa bites down.

The roof door swings open. Both Sakusa and Rintarou startle as they see Atsumu and Osamu breathing heavily, one leaning against the doorframe panting like he can barely stand up, and the other quickly making his way to Sakusa, the only word slipping past his lips being “Omi” as he engulfs him in a giant hug. 

It’s a much needed one. 

Rintarou slides out of the moment. He walks to the doorway and finds Osamu straightening, still out of breath and a little sweaty, but handsome nonetheless. He stands up with hardship, and his eyes are a bit sunken. Had comforting Atsumu gone that poorly?

Osamu’s voice is low, a quiet murmur as he tries to keep his voice down so that the couple can have their scene. 

“Are they gonna be okay? What happened with Sakusa?”

Rintarou looks back. His own hand itches to grab Osamu’s, but he resists. “I don’t know. I think so.” 

Silently, they watch the couple talk. There are tears, and there are gentle gestures. At one point, Atsumu throws his jacket around Sakusa’s shoulders to make up for the one that got ruined, and Osamu looks like he wants to make a joke, but he shuts his mouth.

There’s a lot of restraint in their relationship these days. There’s been a lot of restraint between them, period. Maybe that’s why things ended, among other things. 

Eventually, the couple makes their way back, ten minutes after the wedding was supposed to have started, but both of them look happy, resolved. He’s sure it’s because they have each other that they can insecurely go out and confidently return. 

He gazes at Osamu wistfully and wonders if that kind of relationship was ever on the table for them. He locks the thought away, too late. 

The wedding ceremony proceeds without fanfare, fifteen minutes late, but right on time. 

\--

The wedding reception is a terrible idea. As one-seventh of Atsumu’s male entourage, he’s forced to be there, but as Atsumu’s long-standing, so-called “best friend,” he could drop Atsumu on his head and feel no remorse. 

It’s a loud festivity, amplified by the darkly lit room and endless stream of expensive alcohol. The Sakusas truly knew no restraint for money. Especially the newly handed away/newly inducted Miya Kiyoomi. 

The couple stick together grossly, alternating between slow dancing on the dance floor like nobody’s videotaping them for vlogs and memories, and sitting on each others’ laps when they eventually do take a break from the dance floor to grab a drink. Or two. 

Rintarou’s had about ten. He’s close to breaking Atsumu’s record from the previous night. 

He hadn’t planned on drinking at first, but after seeing the couple exchange their vows at the ceremony and slow dancing at the reception, he can’t help but get caught up in the cheer and drink. Or maybe he’s experiencing symptoms of Vitamin D withdrawal.

Either way, he should have left two hours ago, but now he’s downing his eleventh shot. 

He’s never been very tolerant of alcohol, so his vision fades in and out. There are some blank spots in his recent memory. 

He’s not sure how he lost his jacket, but that’s not much of a loss. Sakusa—no, Miya—no, _fuck_ , Kiyoomi paid for the groomsmens’ suits. He’s also not sure when he got a phone number scrawled out in a purple pen on his arm. 

At some point in the night, he thinks Kita or Aran—he has no fucking clue—tells him he should go to his hotel room to rest, but he doesn’t know what his response was. He downs a few more after that.

Then they show up again, this time in his periphery, and he leans his head into Kita’s shoulder.

He’s unsteady on his feet. Someone lifts his left arm and props him up with a bit of struggle. Despite that, he leans naturally against that person, probably wraps his arms around them actually. 

He’s flushed and hot, and he really needs to use the bathroom. 

Somehow, he and mystery man stumble into his hotel room and he’s led to the toilet. He closes his eyes, head hurting from the bright lights, and when he opens them, the lid’s open and mystery man’s left. He takes care of his business in the bathroom alone, washing his hands three times before forgetting to wipe, then tripping back out of the bathroom to go flop on his bed. 

He moans, burying his face in what feels like the most luxurious and soft bed sheets he’s ever laid on. 

He reaches for his water bottle on the bedside table, flailing, because he knows he should at least hydrate a bit or risk the worst hangover in the morning. But when his hand touches the desk, he just finds a pair of reading glasses. 

He holds them up. 

_Huh_. They look just like—

This isn’t a twin bed. And Komori’s bed isn’t across from this one. It’s just a single king-size bed in the middle of the room, and unless Komori secretly changed their rooms on them, he’s in a complete stranger’s hotel room. 

He pats his pockets and finds his key card. 

_Oh shit_. 

He has no idea where he is.

As he contemplates the floor he’s on and whether climbing out the 27th floor balcony is even feasible, the door turns and in comes who he believes is the mystery man who brought him here. 

“Oh, yer whizzing out. Good. That means yer lucid,” Osamu says, dropping his card key on the table and taking off his shoes. He holds up a shopping bag. “I got ya water from the stand down the hallway. Can ya believe they charge 500 yen for one water bottle? I don’t even want to know what Sakusa’s family is paying for this hotel room.”

“Shit, what am I doing here?” Rintarou says quickly before he can think to stop. 

Osamu pauses, then slowly removes his right shoe. “You were getting pretty wasted at the party. Kita-san looked concerned. We didn’t know where Komori went off to, and ya wouldn’t tell me yer room number, so.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

He should leave. He’s alert enough to theoretically make it back to his room by himself, and now he knows he didn’t stalk into some random person’s hotel room—though the person whose room he _did_ waltz into is probably the person he least felt comfortable around at this current moment. 

But he doesn’t leave. He remains seated at the foot of the bed, and he doesn’t know _why_. 

This isn’t like last night when Rintarou and Osamu were alone in the bar room. There were other people with them back then, even if they were in the background. But this time, it’s just them, completely alone, in Osamu’s hotel room, which has a bed. 

He should leave. 

He stands up, but the act of standing up quickly makes his head spin instead. He falls forward, but instead of catching onto the TV mantle to steady himself, he lands in the arms of Osamu. 

It’s warm. He finds immediate comfort in his embrace.

The man pulls him close. He doesn’t let go. 

“‘Samu?” Rintarou asks, hesitant. 

Osamu wraps his arms around Rintarou’s back, the water bottle in the plastic bag digging into his spine, and he holds him like he’s afraid of losing something. 

“Rin,” he whispers, and it borders on a whimper. He brushes his hand through Rintarou’s hair as Rintarou digs his chin into Osamu’s shoulder. “Are ya okay?”

“Yeah,” Rintarou breathes. 

He’s not sure what’s happening. Not sure if this _should_ be happening. But even though he hasn’t fully regained his senses, that doesn’t mean he isn’t sober enough to figure out that the air in the room is charged. 

He pulls back from Osamu. The man still has his hands wrapped loosely around his shoulders, but now Rintarou can see Osamu clearly. 

His cheeks are red, and his lips are parted slightly. He leans close to Rintarou, like he plans on pillowing himself against him. 

Two months is a long time, he thinks. He misses being able to stare into Osamu’s dark eyes unashamedly and raking his hands through his soft hair. 

He absolutely melts into Osamu’s touch when the man grazes his cheek, and then their lips are crashing against each other. 

He can’t tell who tripped them onto the bed first, but he does know that they’re both equally as hungry and desperate for it. 

Rintarou can’t get out of his stupid dress shirt fast enough, so Osamu helps him with it by unplucking the buttons with his teeth. Sexy.

Next are Rintarou’s pants, but he won’t let Osamu go further than that until he has his shirt off as well. 

They kiss frantically and helplessly, bodies so well in tune with the other’s that even through the frenzy, they elicit moans and whimpers from each other unconsciously. 

And through the heat and friction, all Rintarou can think of is _yes, finally_. 

Rintarou leaves kisses up and down Osamu’s chin and neck, but when he tries to pull Osamu down to capture his lips, the man grinds his ass on Rintarou’s crotch. 

He groans. 

“God, you feel so good.”

Osamu grins like he’s smug as he swoops down to kiss Rintarou long and intense, all the while continuing to grind against him. When he pulls back, spit smears his face and he’s near begging Rintarou as he bounces on top of him.

“Fuck me, Rin. Fuck me good.”

Rintarou places a hand on Osamu’s bare chest. They couldn’t get the last button, so he has his white dress shirt on still. 

Rintarou catches his breath. “Hold on. Wait.”

“I can’t wait,” Osamu says, digging his nails into Rintarou’s shoulders _hard_ as he kisses him deeply. He moans as he savors Rintarou’s taste. 

Alarmed, Rintarou pushes him back. “Wait. Let me be clear on this, because I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings in the morning. Are we having sex because we’re getting back together?”

Osamu stills. His eyes are stuck on Rintarou’s and they’re afraid, waiting. 

“I…” 

“No, ‘Samu. Tell me,” Rintarou pleads. It’s like his heart is breaking all over again. “Is this just because then? Am I—Am I just someone to fool around with?”

“No!” Osamu tears up. He balls his fists on Rintarou’s chest. “No, yer not! I just—”

“What?”

“I _miss you_!” Osamu begins crying. It makes Rintarou choke up, and he sits up so he can catch his tears. He cradles Osamu’s head close to him. “I—I miss ya, Rin. I’m going outta my mind without ya.” 

He soothes Osamu by patting his back. He rubs gentle circles into his shirt and just tries to alleviate the stress from him. “But I thought you were fine. Why would you miss me?”

“ _Are you an idiot?_ ” Osamu cries harder. Rintarou pats faster. “How can I not miss ya when I’m still in with love ya?”

 _Oh_ , Rintarou thinks. He wraps his arms around Osamu and holds him tight. He rocks them back and forth in that position. 

“Then why are you doing this? Why just use me for sex?”

“Because… I…” 

The answer is that there really is no good answer. 

“So you don’t want to get back together, but you still want to be with me?”

Osamu pauses. Then, a nod. 

Rintarou sighs, and he brushes his hand through Osamu’s hair like he’s getting out every tangle. 

“‘Samu, when we broke up, you said that you couldn’t be friends with me. Does that not apply to friends-with-benefits, too?”

“I know,” Osamu says, hiccupping. “I know it’s stupid. But when I saw ya yesterday for the first time since we broke up, ya looked _so good_. It was like being without me didn’t even have an effect on ya. Maybe it didn’t. And then we had to have a fight in the middle of the bar—”

“It wasn’t a fight,” Rintarou interjects. It probably was, but if it was, then it was one-sided on Rintarou’s part for getting unreasonably upset. 

“It _was_ ! Kita-san started asking me all these questions, and that’s when I realized that neither you or me told anybody from back home about what happened between us, and I had to act like everything was okay. Then there was that _guy_ today—”

“Guy? What guy?”

“He was all over you at the party! He even drew his number on yer wrist!” 

Ah, so that’s why there was a string of numbers tattooed on him. 

Osamu continues. “And I couldn’t help it, so I got jealous! I asked Kita and Aran to let ‘Tsumu know we’re leaving, and ‘Tsumu didn’t like it, but he let me go anyway. You didn’t even know it was _me_ carrying ya down the hallway. Ya just kept yapping about Komori and his fucking fashion sense, and before I knew it, I brought ya to my room. I swear, I didn’t mean for tonight to go like this, but when I saw ya, and ya looked at me like I was a thousand stars in the moonlight, I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been a wreck without ya.”

Rintarou pulls back. Osamu’s face is tear-stricken, and his eyes are rimmed red. He sniffs once as he tries to clear away some of the tears, but Rintarou gets there before him. 

Osamu leans into Rintarou’s touch as he brushes his thumb beneath his left eye, tracing away the tears. 

“I’ve been pretty miserable without you, too,” Rintarou admits. Since they’re sharing, might as well be completely honest. “I’ve been spending all my free time with my parents, or Komori, or walking down the streets outside. You know how much I hate being outside.”

“Especially during summer,” Osamu says.

“Especially during summer,” Rintarou parrots. It’s astonishing how beautiful Osamu looks even when he cries. “Life isn’t the same without you. Even though on the surface nothing’s changed, I find myself missing you like crazy.” 

“Yer kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“But you look so, so—” _Well adjusted,_ Osamu wants to say, but Rintarou cuts him off. 

“I’m _not_ ,” Rintarou says before letting out a strained breath. His legs are going numb from Osamu sitting on him, but he misses his weight. His weight… “Did you get smaller?” 

It’s been on his mind since he saw him last night at the bar. 

Osamu flinches. Rintarou quickly brushes a hand through his bangs to calm him. “I couldn’t eat. After we broke up, I just—I don’t know, I kind of lost myself in work. I’d forget to eat, and when I forced myself, it all just tasted like sand. Ain’t that ironic?” he says, smiling ruefully. 

“‘Samu,” Rintarou says, brows creased in concern. “You need to eat. I didn’t know things were bad for you.”

Osamu lets out a breathy laugh. “I didn’t let anyone know. What was I supposed to do? Atsumu wasn’t taking my side in this; he continues to believe that I’m stupid for breaking up with ya. And my parents were too busy helping to plan his wedding that I couldn’t bother them with my own problems.”

“But you—” Rintarou wants to say that Osamu could have come to _him_ , but they both know the reason why that wasn’t possible. “I’m sorry.”

Osamu snorts. It’s loud because he has snot in his nose. “What’re ya sorry for? It’s my fault to begin with.”

“I’m the one who forced you to it.”

“Ya didn’t _force_ me to do nothin—”

“No,” Rintarou quickly says. He shakes his head. “What I mean is: I’m the one who forced your hand. Doing things long distance was obviously draining on you, both emotionally and mentally. If you had felt safe enough with me, you would have talked to me about it, but neither of us ever brought it up. I thought we were fine where we were. I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner that it wasn’t the same for you.”

“Stop making it seem like all the blame belongs to you. _I’m_ the one who called it quits at the end of the day. I can’t go assigning guilt to anybody for what I ended up doing to myself.”

“It takes two to tango,” Rintarou says. 

“So?”

“It takes two to end a relationship, too.”

Osamu laughs, and the sound is like bells to Rintarou’s ears. “Since when did you become so wise?”

Rintarou hums. He thumbs the spot just below Osamu’s right eye. “Maybe since I went to that Chinese restaurant last week and got that fortune cookie? Turns out, they give very good relationship advice.”

“On _ending_ relationships?” Osamu chuckles. He plays with Rintarou’s hair. 

Rintarou shrugs, amused. “It’s advice all the same. It’s good depending on the situation.” 

“Oh wow, I feel stupid.”

“That’s because you are.”

Osamu sighs. He rests his head on Rintarou’s shoulder, and Rintarou lets him. “I don’t think I can keep doing this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m suffering without ya, and yer suffering without me. We should just suffer together,” Osamu suggests. 

Rintarou feels his heart fall. “But you don’t mean getting back together.”

“No,” Osamu agrees, his breath resignatory. “But I’d rather keep ya in my life as a constant than have to see ya pop up every few months at whoever-the-fuck’s wedding it’ll be next. Ya look too good in a suit for me to keep my sanity.”

“Keep in my mind that you tore off the buttons of my suit,” Rintarou recalls. 

“ _Fuck_ off. That guy flirting with ya all night made off with yer jacket. Let me have a few buttons.”

So _that’s_ where that went. Rintarou files that knowledge away. 

“So what then? What do we do?” Rintarou asks. Obviously they want to be in each other’s lives, but it won’t be the same as before. Completely ignoring each other doesn’t work, but what about text messages, phone calls? “That feels like what we were doing before we broke up,” Rintarou points out. 

“As if,” Osamu snorts. “I don’t mean _memes_ , Rin. I never know what to reply when ya just send me pictures of sneezing foxes and write ‘same’ with them. Give me proper conversation.”

“Interpersonal communication, sure, I got it,” Rintarou replies drily. 

“Can I come over?” Osamu then asks, rather shyly. 

Rintarou blanks out. “Uhh…”

Narrowing his eyes, Osamu’s glare is scathing. “Unless ya have something there ya can’t show me. Like another boyfriend.”

“ _Fuck_ , ‘Samu, it’s barely been two months. You think I move on just like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“ _Seven years_?!” 

“Will ya let me over or not?!”

Rintarou just sighs. “Sure, sure. You can come over.” He’ll just have to remember to message Osamu with his new address. He’s not sure how he’ll explain the new apartment given that he bought it with the intention of moving him and Osamu in. And it’s also not like he can say he wanted to move by himself, _just because_ , because it’s a 2-bedroom unit, and unless he’s bringing people over like Osamu maliciously insinuates about him, then there’s only one other explanation. 

“Good,” Osamu harrumphs, satisfied. 

“So what does that make us then? Friends?” Rintarou asks. What a label. To go from teammates to friends to boyfriends to exes back to friends again—it feels like he’s been reset at zero.

Osamu places a hand under his chin, thoughtful. “ _Almost_ friends?”

Rintarou chokes. “That sounds awful.”

Then Osamu seems to settle on one, because he smiles. He wraps his hands around Rintarou’s neck and pulls him closer. He’s pretty sure “almost friends” don’t do things like this. 

“ _Best_ friends,” Osamu says, like he’s letting Rintarou in on a joke. 

He sighs, grieved. “You know this means you really _did_ steal Atsumu’s best friend then.”

“I don’t know what yer talking about. That dummy can get his own friends.”

“Okay then,” Rintarou says, rolling his eyes. “ _Best friends_.” 

“Yeah,” Osamu breathes out, as if he’s suddenly weightless. It’s a feathery feeling. “That.” 

Minutes pass, and neither make a move to get up from where they’re sitting. Rintarou’s legs have long gone numb, and Osamu can’t exactly be considered comfortable sitting on Rintarou’s bony knees. Eventually, Rintarou makes the decision to leave first. 

“I should go,” he says.

“No,” Osamu insists. There’s a smoldering fire in his eyes, but it’s not the predatory kind from their sex haze earlier. It’s intimate, demanding, pleading. “Stay,” he says, firm. 

And because it’s Osamu who asks, Rintarou says yes, and they fall back in the sheets. Laying together, legs tangled up on the bed, they continue holding each other through the night and into the morning, and not once do they let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say no more angst? Oh. My hand slipped--
> 
> Part 3 is halfway complete and will be uploaded sometime next week! Your comments have been so lovely, and yes I have been reading them. I just haven't gotten around to responding to them yet since I've been writing. If you feel comfortable, I'd love to hear your thoughts for this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 is here. All I can say is, I'm fucking glad it's finally over. I wrote and rewrote and scrapped so many sections of this last part that I began wondering if I'd ever see an end to it. Considering that it clocked in at almost double the length of the previous two parts, my tears were valid. Anyways, enjoy. It's a happy ending ya'll, just in case the tags were confusing.

[September, 2019]

Falling apart had been excruciating and hard, but coming back together was like waking up in the morning to your mom flattening pancakes on the stove. A little bit like home.

Though perhaps because Rintarou has no idea how “making up” is supposed to work, and he knows even less about how being friends with an ex-lover is supposed to magically pan out, he makes mistakes. Out of habit, he attaches memes in their chat history, and it’s only when Osamu calls him and he picks up at the first ring, heart thumping and words failing, that he stops. 

“ _ Really, Rin? Really _ ?” Osamu asks, a silent, deadpan eyeroll in there somewhere. 

Rintarou is just happy to hear Osamu’s voice, to feel the warm, fluttery vibrations cascade through the receiver. “You wanna talk instead?” he chokes out. 

Osamu huffs on the other end. He sounds like he’s holding back a laugh. “ _ Yeah _ ,” he says whimsically. It’s a nice sound. “ _ I wanna hear yer voice. _ ”

And despite the embarrassment of tripping over his own words, Rintarou talks. 

They talk, and through careful suturing and patient healing, they slowly bridge the invisible gap that had sprung up not only during those two months of silence, but from nearly seven years of absence. 

He thinks for the first time that maybe Osamu had a point in breaking up. They had never been  _ together _ , not truly. Not in the sense that it meant they were actively involved in each others’ lives outside of the occasional weekend trip to Tokyo or Osaka. He never knew that Osamu met his deputy chef Chiaki because of a YouTube cooking ASMR venture that Osamu had attempted, failed, and never bothered to tell Rintarou (he would have milked that for all its worth), or that Osamu spends nearly all his breaks playing shogi with the elderly customers at his shop. He finds it endearing, and also wonders if his grandparents’ influence might not have left their mark on him a little  _ too _ well given how he mercilessly beats senior citizens in the strategic game in fifteen minutes or less.

When Rintarou asks why Osamu never told him all of this, Osamu just says, “Cause ya’ve always got this bored expression on yer face. I thought I was putting ya to sleep.”

Rintarou blinks. Oh. He never realized. 

Aside from upgrading to in-depth phone calls, Rintarou has taken to sending photos—not memes, never again with the memes (unless they’re  _ really _ funny, in which case he’ll just tag Osamu on whatever social media app he originally found it on rather than save the image and fill up the man’s storage space in messages). 

They’re just simple pictures that document his daily life: the leaves changing color along Meguro River, a quick snap of his parents from behind as his mom makes dinner, a blurry shot of Komori snatching his phone out of his hands to prevent another meme-ification (he swears he doesn’t do it anymore). But for the most part, he focuses on food. 

Osamu likes food best, and Rintarou is at least half-decent in the kitchen, though he has nothing on the food business entrepreneur. 

He sends him a photograph of fried tofu one day. It’s at least half burnt and absolutely soaked in soy sauce. Osamu immediately calls him. 

“Yer a terror,” he laughs over the line. 

“I think you mean  _ it’s _ a terror. It’s disgusting.”

“Yer disgusting.”

He gets better at cooking, and when the results turn out at least passable according to Osamu’s seemingly low standards for him, he gets a photo in response. 

_ This is what it’s supposed to look like, ya dummy _ , Osamu sends him. 

Rintarou rolls his eyes at Osamu’s mockery, but he smiles when he receives a photo immediately following with the caption,  _ It was good. I should try adding peppers next time _ . 

Within a few weeks, Osamu’s weight is back to what it was before, and Rintarou has to hold back the tears.

“I’m proud of you,” Rintarou says as they’re on a video call one night. He’s able to see Osamu clearly as the man faces his camera in the bathroom mirror, showing his full figure. 

Osamu’s eyes are glossy. It feels like they’ve both become more emotional these days. “Ya mean that?”

“I mean it,” Rintarou says firmly. There’s no question. He’s always been proud of Osamu, whether it’s ten years ago or ten years from now, he’ll never have reason to not be proud of the man he fell in love with.

“Oh god,” Osamu says, choking up. The phone shakes, and the camera rotates back so all Rintarou can see is Osamu’s beautiful, flushed face. “I’m dying. This really hurts.”

He guesses honesty is also on that list of new things involved in their rekindled relationship alongside emotionality. 

Rintarou lets out a breath, slow and tender. He really misses him. “Yeah, same.”

They both end up crying that night. 

Atsumu is the first one to bring up Rintarou’s new friendship status with Osamu after learning. Well, technically since he’s one of the only ones who knew about their break-up in the first place, the list of competitors wasn’t long to begin with. 

Atsumu sulks during one of their pre-season practice matches where the MSBY Black Jackals have come up to Tokyo to play a few rounds with Rintarou’s team. The man has no reason to sulk, not after the Jackals just took three straight wins immediately after two losses against Rintarou’s team. But regrettably, he does, and when Sakusa mysteriously vanishes without trace following cool-down stretches, it’s Rintarou’s duty as Atsumu’s “best man” to go over and make fun of him. 

“Why didn’t ya tell me?” Atsumu asks as Rintarou pushes him down into a deep stretch. 

Atsumu bends forward and reaches for his toes. His stomach practically kisses the ground. Gross. Why is he so flexible? 

“Did ‘Samu tell you?” Rintarou asks in response. He pushes down a little too hard, and Atsumu yelps. He doesn’t apologize. 

Atsumu curses at him, annoyed. “Ya think that scrub tells me anything? Omi told me his cousin was alone in yer hotel room that night. It was you and ‘Samu that left together. It isn’t that hard to figure out.”

Rintarou blinks, surprised that Atsumu can use his brain for anything. “And you only bothered to ask about it now?”

He slaps Rintarou’s hands off of him. He’s stretched enough. He stands. “Cause Omi only told me this like a few days ago! Ya’ve been canoodling with ‘Samu for weeks, and ya didn’t think to tell  _ me _ ? Why do I always gotta find things out  _ after _ the fact?” 

Rintarou chokes. “ _ Canoodling _ ? What mom dictionary have you been citing? Besides, we haven’t done any  _ canoodling _ ; we’re just friends.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes. He scoffs. “Friends, right. As if. Both of ya are just cowards.” 

There it is, that word again. It must be a favorite of his, or maybe it’s just because it’s the most fitting word for their situation. 

Atsumu looks at his feet. His shoulders slump. His voice drops levels. “Nobody told me how bad ‘Samu was taking it.”

Oh, so  _ that’s  _ what this is about. Either he noticed it during the wedding, heard it from the man himself, or like everything that’s happened until now, he only learned it from someone else  _ after _ the damage had already been done. He can’t imagine how shitty that must feel. Or wait, he can.

He puts a hand on Atsumu’s shoulder. “Hey, you can’t blame yourself for that. Nobody knew.” Not even him.

“Yeah, I know! I know, I just,” Atsumu says, wiping his hand over his face. He speaks slowly. “Yer my best friend, and he’s my brother. When shit went down, I should’ve— I shouldn’t have left him like I did.”

Rintarou swallows thickly. He sees Sakusa emerge from the corner of the gym; he’s waiting for Atsumu. Atsumu should probably go, but he doesn’t.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have left either.” Maybe like Atsumu says, he’s just a coward. A coward who is too afraid of staying or leaving, so he panics and straddles the line. 

Maybe if he had stayed to begin with, Osamu’s health wouldn’t have declined. Maybe if they had ended things earlier rather than let Osamu slip off the band-aid that had already long been falling off, then maybe the wound wouldn’t have scarred so bad. But he couldn’t do either, because he loved Osamu, and he was a coward. 

“Fuck that,” Atsumu suddenly says, then slaps his cheeks out of whatever funk he’d been in. His skin turns bright red. “We ain’t competing for the sorriest loser plaque because we both know I win everything.”

“What.”

And the vulnerable moment is suddenly gone. Back to stupidity. It’s their only language, but it’s the language he appreciates most right now.

Remorselessly, he shoves his hands in his shorts, hums as he kicks Atsumu in the back of the knees before jogging off to annoy the  _ other  _ Miya on the court, and chirps, “You’re right. It’s a landslide; I forfeit. You’re the sorriest loser I’ve ever met.”

“Hey!”

Atsumu chases him on his heels, hellbent on a few noogies, meanwhile Rintarou just laughs as he hides behind Sakusa’s large and long-suffering person.

But still, he can’t help but wonder like Atsumu. 

_ Friends, huh _ ?

[October, 2019]

He spends the twins’ birthday in Osaka. In past years, it’s been a dual affair of balancing Atsumu’s penchant for fanfare and theatrics (often ending in at least a broken vase or two) and Osamu’s insatiable hunger for food (meaning a buffet was always a good choice). This year, the two celebrate their birthday early on Friday the 4th, having a nice dinner with the full family and some close friends who live nearby; the following day, Rintarou celebrates Osamu’s actual birthday alone. 

At first, he suggests phoning up some other friends, maybe keep it low-key, but Osamu refuses. 

“I already gotta do all that on Friday night  _ and _ put up with ‘Tsumu’s annoying face. Ya wanna make me suffer more?”

_ Okay _ , Rintarou thinks. So no to a group party then. This means that Rintarou alone will be with Osamu for hours, together, no distractions. 

He wonders if the gods are testing him. 

On Osamu’s actual birthday, Rintarou’s train pulls up to the station promptly at 5 pm. Osamu waits by the kiosks, eyes covered by shades even though it’s cloudy, and arms crossed as he looks half-annoyed, half-impatient. 

“Yer late,” he says, lips pursed in a pout. 

_ Cute _ .

Rintarou raises an eyebrow. “I’m not, though?” 

He told him he’d catch the first train after his practice ended. 5 pm is  _ pretty _ early considering practices typically go to 3 pm on weekends and Osaka is a two and a half hour train ride. Luckily, they got out early today. 

Osamu knits his brows further, as if he can’t decide whether logic is good or if logic is God and he’d like to fight it just because. He chooses the latter. “Shut up. Yer late. Let’s go.”

He turns on his heel as if to stalk off, but when Rintarou just stares at him, enamored by  _ how good _ his broad back looks, he swings back and grabs Rintarou’s hand, latching his fingers with his like how they used to when they went on dates, and tows him along. 

Rintarou might have been the taller one, but Osamu’s hands were larger. 

They’re warm, strong, and comforting. Rintarou trails along helplessly, chasing after the hand that won’t let go. 

When they enter the restaurant, Rintarou learns why Osamu is wearing shades. 

Unable to hold it in, he lets out a bellow laugh. Tears prick his eyes. 

“You—” he snorts. He covers his mouth with his hand, but it’s too late. The damage is done. 

Osamu hides his face with his hands, but it does nothing to cover up his sweet blush. 

Rintarou smiles unabashedly. He leans his chin on his hand as he studies the beautiful work of what he can only assume to be the outcome of a brilliant prank. “Did the makeup fairy visit you, ‘Samu? If so, then I think you should ask for a refund.”

Osamu groans, but he gives up on hiding his face now. It’s no use. He distracts himself by angrily flipping through the menu. It’s Korean barbecue. Yum. 

“I think I ought to  _ sue _ the makeup fairy is what I should do,” Osamu complains. “Stupid ‘Tsumu kept making me drink last night. Shoulda known he had an ulterior motive. Ya know he used  _ permanent _ marker? I rubbed my eyes out with soap and water for like half an hour until the skin was raw, and it  _ still _ wouldn’t come off.”

_ Atsumu, huh? _ He wonders if that’s his funny way of apologizing to Osamu.

“It looks good,” Rintarou says, smug. He loves antagonizing him. 

Osamu flips him the prettiest finger as he says, “Fuck you. Oh, not  _ you _ —” he quickly corrects as he realizes the waitress is waiting behind him to take their order. She looks unimpressed. 

Panda eyes could suit Osamu, Rintarou thinks. He already looks half dead most of the time anyway. He has the sleeping schedule to match it, too. 

They place their orders and within twenty minutes, they’ve got four plates of meat, two plates of lettuce and ample side dishes, rice, and extra spicy tteokbokki. As the food connoisseur and the only one likely to not accidentally char their expensive marble meat, Osamu immediately takes command of the grill, expertly flipping meat like he’s on some Gordon Ramsey show and the only verdict acceptable is “perfection.”

He likes seeing Osamu when he’s like this. Confident, at ease. Preparing food brings out a side of him that never got to exist while he was on the court. It’s subtle and nuanced, and there’s a look of affection that crosses his expression as he treats every ingredient with care. 

He remembers when Osamu told him he wasn’t going to pursue volleyball. It had thrown Rintarou for a loop. It was their second year, and they weren’t yet together, but he always figured that even if his crush remained unrequited, they could still be close to one another through sport; maybe Rintarou would have been stupid enough to follow Osamu into the same professional team. 

But he didn’t; Osamu didn’t play for a team. In fact, he hardly plays anymore at all, a fact that still makes Rintarou crestfallen. But Osamu loved what he chose, and he had confided in Rintarou first before even Atsumu. He couldn’t say no; instead he said yes, a thousand times yes, because above all else, he wanted Osamu  _ happy _ . 

He wonders if Osamu is happy now.

Is he happy like this, being friends with Rintarou? Is he happy like this, still 500 kilometers apart, just with a different label now to their back-and-forth replies? 

Osamu places a serving way too large for Rintarou’s small stomach on his plate, and as he leans over the grill, Rintarou has the sudden urge to brush his hand against Osamu’s cheek, cup his face and hold him there, frozen in time. He watches, dazed, as the light from the orange heat lamp catches on Osamu’s lashes just right, and he wants to kiss his panda eyes until the ink stains his lips.

He probably looks funny while thinking that because Osamu makes a face at him. He doesn’t say a word; instead, he just stuffs his mouth with perfectly grilled meat instead, ignoring the thoughts he’s tried so hard to push down. 

It’s hard to be friends, he thinks. It leaves a shitty taste in his mouth. 

But Osamu looks and feels better, so if being friends is what makes him happy, then Rintarou will say yes, a thousand times yes, because he can’t bear to say no. 

He swallows.

\--

It’s probably a bad idea that they both ordered alcohol with their food. It was probably an even _ worse _ idea when they decided to bar hop after their meal until both of them were bent over a back bar toilet, retching the meat that barely started digesting. 

Rintarou manages to be better off; he at least knows his limits, disregarding moments when he purposefully gets wasted during particularly emotional bouts. 

Osamu, on the other hand, refuses to learn what the phrase “take it easy” means, and acts like everything’s a challenge meant to be won.

He carries Osamu up the stairs of the man’s apartment complex, teetering every so often to one side of the steps so that they nearly go tumbling off the side railing, before miraculously rediscovering their center of gravity as Osamu slumps even further into Rintarou. His hair brushes against Rintarou’s chin. It’s soft. 

By the time they make it up all five flights of stairs, Rintarou feels like throwing up again, but only because Osamu finds that moment to be the perfect time to wrap his arms around Rintarou’s waist and  _ squeeze _ . In any other situation, he’d be absolutely elated, but right now, he just wants to find Osamu’s keys and jam it in the keyhole so they can both collapse to the ground like sniveling cats. 

Rintarou mutters to himself as he digs through Osamu’s pockets, trying to locate the damn fucking key. Osamu nuzzles his face in Rintarou’s neck, glomping Rintarou from the front as he pulls him closer. 

At last, he finds the key in Osamu’s back pocket, and he wrenches the door open. As he predicted, they both accidentally tumble through the doorway, toppling to the ground like Jenga pieces. 

The fall hurts Rintarou more than Osamu because he takes the brunt of it. His back lands on Osamu’s neatly lined row of shoes, and while that would normally constitute a soft landing, Osamu wears boots on weekends. It’s stiff and stabs his back. 

“Fuck,” he groans, back aching. 

Osamu’s so out of it. He buries his face in Rintarou’s chest and starts yanking his hair unconsciously like he plans to make violin bows with it. 

Before he can go bald at the hands of his ex-boyfriend, he urges Osamu “up, up boy,” and somehow puts him through his routine. 

By the time Osamu steps out of his lazy five-minute shower, body wet and naked, uncaring to Rintarou’s presence in the room, Rintarou has water and pain relievers set on his bedside table. Osamu gets dressed in the clothes Rintarou throws at him and only does the bare minimum for his hair when Rintarou starts to help him dry off but leaves Osamu to do the rest when both his hands are empty of shirt and boxers. 

Rintarou checks the time. It’s a half hour to midnight, and if he catches the next train in twenty minutes, he can be back in his Tokyo apartment in the early morning. It’ll be barely tolerable with the raging headache he feels, but he’ll make it work. 

As he sits on the  _ genkan _ tying up his shoes, Osamu pads across the floor and throws himself over Rintarou. His limbs spill out on all sides, and Osamu places his chin on top of Rintarou’s head. 

He smells nice, like lavender. 

He gently nudges Osamu off of him. “Go back to bed, ‘Samu.” He can’t keep acting like Osamu’s actions don’t affect him. 

“Yer not coming with me?” Osamu asks innocently. 

Rintarou freezes. 

It was one thing to fall asleep together in the same bed during Atsumu’s wedding—they’d both been in an emotionally heightened state back then—but it was another thing to go to sleep,  _ in the same bed _ , now. 

They aren’t dating. And sure, _some_ friends might sleep in the same bed and be fine, but they’re _not_ _just friends_. At one point, they had been romantic partners. Arguably, they still _act_ like romantic partners, but that’s only because they’re trying to slowly let go— _Osamu’s_ trying to slowly let go. Or at least that’s what should be happening.

And because Osamu isn’t in a mental state to do so, Rintarou needs to be the one to draw the line. 

“I’m catching the next train, ‘Samu. I have practice tomorrow morning,” he explains. Technically, he  _ does _ have practice tomorrow morning, but Sunday practices comprise individual workouts. He can show up late, but Osamu doesn’t know this. 

Rintarou moves to stand, but Osamu leans his forehead against Rintarou’s back. It’s only the one spot and it’s less touchy than before, but somehow it feels more vulnerable. 

“Do ya have to leave me?”

_ Again _ , is what goes unspoken. 

Rintarou swallows thickly. It’s like he drank lead instead of alcohol. “‘Samu…”

This is exactly what he was afraid of in becoming friends again.  _ Best friends _ , Osamu had put it. Friends with the unfortunate luxury of still being in love.

Being friends was supposed to make it easier to leave, but why does it feel like the difficulty just keeps ratcheting up? 

But this is what Osamu wanted, being friends. He’s just not in a sober enough state to recognize his actions right now. Better to hurt earlier than to hurt longer by dragging this out and staying until morning. 

Osamu shakes his head against Rintarou’s back. His hands clutch onto Rintarou’s shirt. “I don’t wanna see ya go.”

“‘Samu, I have to.” They should have talked about this. 

“No,” he says, and his voice catches. He wraps his arms around Rintarou’s torso now, willing him to stay even if he has to put all his weight into it. “I hate it when ya leave. Why do ya have to always go? Just stay here with me. I’ll kidnap ya if I have to.”

Rintarou could do one of two things: one, he could stay the night and crash on the floor (he’s  _ not _ getting in the same bed with Osamu; who knows what that may lead to), or two, he could dump Osamu right now and leave, ignoring the hauntingly present outcome that’s sure to hang over him once he does go. He doesn’t like either option, and Osamu is unwilling to budge. 

He turns around on the  _ genkan _ and faces Osamu. Unlike before, he looks more awake and alert, or maybe that’s just Rintarou’s imagination making things up in the darkness. 

“‘Samu, I gotta go,” he says, more firmly this time. He detaches Osamu’s arms from his waist and sets the hands back in Osamu’s lap, carefully distancing himself. 

“But  _ why _ ?” Osamu whines, insistently. He’s like a child. 

Rintarou sighs. He’s exasperated. This hurts _him_ , too. Does Osamu never think about that?  
“I’ll call you in the morning to make sure you’re alive, so _please_ just go to bed,” he ends up pleading.

Osamu crosses his arms, sulking. “Not until you promise to stay.”

Rintarou rakes a hand through his hair, tired. “I don’t get it. First you want to break up, then you want to be friends, but now you’re asking me to  _ spend the night _ ? ‘Samu, I don’t know what’s going on in your mind.”

“I don’t mean that we have to  _ sleep _ with each other. Is it so hard to beg ya just to stay?” Osamu asks, blinking hard. He furrows his brow tightly.

“ _ Yes, _ ” Rintarou breathes out. It’s hard. Of  _ course _ it’s damn hard because every single time he leaves like Osamu asks him to, he reels him back in with promises and sweet words and small whimpers that makes it hard to say no. But in the tug-of-war of their tumultuous relationship, it’s Rintarou’s emotions that become collateral damage. 

Osamu’s mouth gapes like he wasn’t expecting the answer, but then anger smears his face. “Well, fine!  _ Sorry _ for bothering ya then!”

They’re having a fight, Rintarou thinks. They rarely have fights, but they’re having a fight right now. He doesn’t know what a fight between an Osamu and a Rintarou looks like, but he’s seen enough of other couples fighting to know that they’re in one right now. And even though he knows this, knows that he should put a brake on it and de-escalate the situation, he gives in. 

“What did you  _ think _ I was going to say?” Rintarou lets out. “Of  _ course _ it bothers me! I’m trying so hard to be a friend to you right now because that’s what you said you needed, but every single time I’ve resigned myself to being ‘just a friend,’ you hold my hand, you hug me, you fucking ask me to  _ stay the night _ , and you don’t think any of it bothers me? ‘Samu, you keep giving me mixed signals. I don’t know what you want!”

Osamu’s incensed. He shouts back at him. “So it’s  _ my  _ fault now? Who was the one who said it takes ‘two to tango,’ or the whole ‘it takes two to end a relationship’? Aren’t I allowed to ask ya for favors, to treat ya close? I thought ya were supposed to be my friend, not my fucking ward!”

Rintarou balls his fists in his lap. He bites down, hard. “I’m not trying to be your ward, I’m just trying to be what you asked me to be, and I’m pretty fucking sure  _ this _ isn’t what friends do. Are we even friends?”

“We’ve always been friends!” Osamu yells. Rintarou’s surprised no neighbors have gone banging on Osamu’s walls yet. “Ya’ve always been my friend—my  _ best _ friend! It’s what made our relationship work.”

“Then why did it end?” Rintarou asks. He’s exhausted. From this night, from this fight, from everything. Osamu balks, unable to come up with a single word of retort, so he just shuts his mouth and glares. 

If their relationship had been so perfect, then it wouldn’t have ended. It wasn’t just the distance—they’d had other problems even as each other’s partners and best friends. Maybe the problem now is that there’s no separation between the two labels because they’ve become so entaglingly synonymous. 

“Yer the one that asked to be friends first,” Osamu mumbles, bringing up their June break-up. 

“I did,” Rintarou admits, jaw firm. But that had had a very distinct boundary, a line that would never be crossed. It isn’t whatever this— _ this _ is. The affectionate touch, the pleas to stay, the yearning of love that refuses to extinguish. “But I don’t know how to be the friend you want without feeling like my heart’s being stepped on every single time we toe the line.”

“Rin…” Osamu looks like he’s just been kicked. He tugs on the hem of Rintarou’s shirt like he’s a child hiding behind his mother’s skirt after he did something bad. 

Rintarou just breaks. 

He tugs Osamu into an engulfing embrace and soothes the man by petting his hair, murmuring soft words and apologies. “I know, I’m sorry.” He’s not sure if he actually means the words, but it’s the only thing that comes out. Osamu just buries his face in closer, breathing in Rintarou as shaky breaths slowly turn into calm, soft ones. 

Eventually, Osamu falls asleep on Rintarou in the  _ genkan _ , and Rintarou just puts up with it. He holds him, holds him closer, because he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. Their whole relationship is pretty fucked up. 

Days, months, years—he’s not sure how long this will last. He wants to stay in Osamu’s life—he wants  _ Osamu _ to stay in his. But he doesn’t think they can make it work like this, even if he can’t bring himself to say no.

He texts Komori to let their trainer know he’ll be late tomorrow, and then he drifts until morning, holding Osamu until he can’t feel anything else, including his heart.

He takes the 6 am train. 

\--

Komori drills him with fiery eyes from across the table as he sucks loudly on the straw of a cold cup of Starbucks iced coffee that has already been depleted of all its coma-inducing caffeine. At this point, there’s nothing but the ice and disappointment during this one particularly chilly October afternoon. 

Rintarou hates being judged when he’s normally the one doing the judging, so he throws his hands up in the air, exasperated. “Spit it out.”

Komori doesn’t speak. No, he just  _ waits _ . He stares silently at Rintarou with the patience and arrogance of a bodhisattva, and the only thing that irks Rintarou more is the fact that Komori  _ knows _ it gets under Rintarou’s skin. 

He slumps over the table, his face buried in his hand, helpless. “Just say it, please.”

Komori doesn’t waste his spite. He’s efficient, like a laser. 

“Oh, so  _ now _ you want to listen.  _ Oh, it’s okay, he ignores all my messages but that’s just us. Oh, it’s fine, we broke up but let me just internalize my suffering. Oh, I’m alright, hey let me take out my frustrations by smashing you in badminton with my dad’s friends because that’s totally a healthy coping mechanism. Oh, we’re just friends/not friends now because we’re emotionally blocked assholes, lalalala _ —”

“Alright, enough.” That’s enough of a laugh track to put Rintarou in the grave. He pulls his jacket closer, feeling cold sitting outside. They’re at an outdoor table in front of the cafe next to the river by his parents’ house. “I just asked you to cover for me this morning. I paid you back in coffee, didn’t I?”

Komori deadpans. “Suna. It’s literally 5 degrees Celsius right now.  _ In the afternoon _ . You just dragged me to Starbucks and ordered iced coffee for me without asking.”

“What? Did you want hot chocolate or something?”

“At least it’d be warm!”

“You still drank it.”

“Because it was free!” Komori huffs. He slams the plastic cup to the table and alarms a few old ladies sitting near them. They get stares. 

Rintarou sinks lower into his seat, pulling up his hood. 

“It’s because you don’t like him, isn’t it? What don’t you like about him?” Rintarou asks. Komori has been jumping off this wagon since the beginning of summer, yet somehow, he always manages to stumble back, though not without his share of grumbles. 

Komori sighs as he looks like his soul is escaping him. Maybe it is. That’d be funny. 

“It’s not that I don’t like  _ him _ ,” Komori says, “I just don’t like this  _ situation _ .”

“It’s fine,” Rintarou insists coolly.

Komori doesn’t buy it. He slides his straw out of the plastic lid with a gross high-pitch wail, and he points the dripping end at Rintarou like he’s ready to stick it up his nose. 

“Stop that,” Komori says. “I don’t get why you always pivot and act like everything’s fine when it’s not.”

“I don’t do that,” Rintarou blusters. Maybe he does.

“Yes, you do.” He waves his straw around like a plastic sword.

Okay, he  _ kind of _ does. 

“So what? What’s wrong with pivoting?”

“You trip and fall over, then you bawl like a baby in my hotel room because you’re a stupid idiot who can’t think about anything other than how pretty Osamu is, which,” Komori pauses, pained, “please stop. My cousin’s married to his twin, so if I have to listen to you simping over Osamu, then by the transitive property, I’m also listening to you describe Atsumu and his 63 perfect features,  _ which I will add _ , I already get enough of from Kiyo as is.” He lets out another sigh as if this time he really did just lose his soul.

Poor guy. What a hard life he must live.

Rintarou snuffs. “It was one time. I can handle myself. I know when to pull back.”

Komori leans in, smiling like he’s unhinged. 

“Do you though? Because it seems to me like Osamu’s just leading you around like a horse with no fucking water trough in sight, and you follow him happily. I can’t tell if he’s guilt-tripping you or if you’re tripping over yourself doing what you think he wants, but it can’t be healthy. Neither of you are bad people, Suna, but you were just getting better before the wedding. You stopped moping at your parents’ house, and you actually started doing stuff again without making everybody else in the room sad and miserable, too.” 

How rude, Rintarou didn’t do that. 

But Komori doesn’t let Rintarou off the hook because he continues. 

“Don’t even think that you didn’t, because you did. You naturally emit resting emo energy, but when you and Osamu broke up, it’s like somebody played all the sad MCR songs they knew on loop and cranked the volume up to 120.”

Rintarou rolls his eyes. “MCR, really?” He doesn’t even listen to them. 

Komori stands firm with his 2000s edgy teenager assessment of Rintarou. “Yes,  _ really _ . Then Osamu shows back up at the wedding,  _ you _ go missing from our hotel room, and then suddenly you’re ‘friends’ again,” he says, deliberately air-quoting “friends” with his fingers. He looks like a crab.

Rintarou gives. “What do you want from me?”

“What I want is for you to make the decisions you can and make the decisions that will make you  _ happy _ ,” Komori says softer, setting down his abused plastic straw. 

“And what would make me happy?” Rintarou asks, because at this point, he doesn’t even know anymore.

But Komori doesn’t have an answer either. He just shrugs, then looks at how nice the river looks. The changing season really is beautiful. 

“That’s not for me to tell you. I just know that you’re not happy  _ now _ .” 

Komori and his dad have similar views on happiness, Rintarou thinks. Life isn’t meant to be sad and miserable; it’s not meant to be lived being weighed down by every decision of the past; it’s meant to be enjoyed. 

It’s hard to imagine this conversation with somebody other than Komori, but only because Komori calls him out on his BS and he’s actually rational about it most of the time. And though he hates having to listen to it, he knows that Komori is one of the few people he  _ will _ listen to. 

He juts his chin at Komori’s abandoned cup of ice minus the coffee. 

“Do you want another cup? I’ll pay.”

Komori just sideeyes him for a few minutes like he’s debating whether Rintarou is segueing the conversation to avoid an uncomfortable topic, or if he’s segueing because he wants some time to stew in it. Either way, the libero gives the worst stink eye, unremorseful to Rintarou’s growing awkwardness. 

“Yes, please.”

“Okay.” Rintarou stands.

Then, “Make it hot.”

“Hot chocolate, got it.”

“I’m not a kid!”

He gets hot chocolate.

\--

He gets a message from Osamu. It’s a simple one. 

_ Sorry _ .

Against his better judgment, he ignores Komori’s words from earlier that day. 

_ It’s fine. _

_ Are we good? _ Osamu asks. 

Rintarou types back. 

_ Yeah. _

_ Are we still friends? _ Osamu immediately follows. 

Rintarou hesitates this time. Then he replies. 

_ Yeah. _

He turns off his phone.

[November, 2019]

“You did something to ‘Samu, didn’t ya?” Atsumu accuses, immediately cornering Rintarou after the first official match of the season between the EJP Raijins and the MSBY Black Jackals. 

How the fuck is Atsumu not exhausted? Rintarou’s exhausted, and he stands off the court half the time. 

Rintarou blinks at him before shoving the setter out of the way so he can get to his damn locker. 

Atsumu just follows him, pestering him until both of their good names have probably been sullied. 

“Don’t ignore me!”

As Rintarou turns the combination on his locker, he says, “Nice to know that your loyalties are easily swayed by karmic guilt.”

“Hey! I’ve always been loyal to ‘Samu!” Atsumu yells. Then he mumbles, “‘Cept when he tosses me outta the restaurant for not paying.”

“I think anybody would toss you out for that.”

Rintarou peels off his jersey, tosses it on the bench, and changes into a fresh shirt. His nose wrinkles. 

_ Huh, this one feels smaller than normal… _

Oh, it must be—

“Is that ‘Samu’s shirt?” Atsumu asks, suspicious and crowding closer. He doesn’t give Rintarou a chance to back away before he yanks his collar and checks the tag, and sure enough, in black sharpie there’s the kanji for Osamu. “Oh my god,” Atsumu says, covering his mouth as Rintarou throws his hand off of him. He stares at Rintarou with disgust, feeling betrayed. “Oh my god, ya guys are banging behind my back now. And how long has  _ this _ been going on? Days, weeks? Did ya guys ever break up in the first place??”

Rintarou shuts his locker door close. It makes a loud clang. “Fuck off, Atsumu. We’re not doing anything. I told you, we’re just friends. The shirt’s probably from before.” 

Though that doesn’t stop him from thinking about that night at Osamu’s, or about the talk he had with Komori the next day. 

“ _ Still _ ?” Atsumu asks, bewildered. 

Atsumu acts like  _ this _ is what he’s actually surprised by rather than the fact that Rintarou and Osamu may be doing the do behind his back without telling him. Again. He gets left out a lot, huh? 

Atsumu then gasps as if he has a revelation and spouts in quick, loud whispers, “Maybe  _ that’s  _ why he’s pissier these days.”

“Or it’s just because you annoy him. Ever thought about that?”

But even though Rintarou tries to make a clean break in this conversation and high-tail it out of there, Atsumu grips his shoulder,  _ hard.  _

Atsumu sighs. “Ya guys have seriously got to figure this out. If I’d known it would’ve taken this long, I would have made you  _ swear _ to work things out by the wedding.”

Rintarou rolls his eyes. He picks up his bag and slings it over his shoulder as he shoves Atsumu off. “Why are you so invested? It’s one relationship. Not everyone has a sappy ending like yours.” 

But as he says the words, he knows it’s not quite true. It ignores the fact that at every hurdle, every world-disaster-size issue Atsumu and Sakusa faced, they plowed through it together. Sometimes easily; sometimes not. 

“No,” Atsumu says slowly, then he stands straighter. 

Rintarou doesn’t like that look in his eye. It makes him feel like crap. 

Atsumu continues. “But I know when I see one worth fighting for."

\--

The cincher comes at the end of the month when Sakusa comes to Tokyo to visit family and somehow manages to get Rintarou’s number to call him up for lunch. 

“Oh, I think this one hurts the most,” he says, wasting away until he’s nothing but dust. He places a hand to his heart dramatically. First Komori, then Atsumu. Will the next one come from the tooth fairy? 

He leans back in the suede, leather booth. Their table is low-lit despite it being noon, but of course, that’s how all snazzy and unaffordably rich establishments work. Sakusa’s paying though, so it’s fine. 

Sakusa frowns, evidently annoyed by Rintarou’s theatrics. Apparently, he thought the penchant for drama only ran through Atsumu, but boy was he wrong. “What. What are you talking about?” 

Rintarou despairs more. The world must really hate him if he has to listen to  _ this _ guy. “Oof. Yep. This one wrecks me. Coming from the lowest EQ person there is, this one really stings.” 

The man slaps his fancy cloth napkin on the table. “How rude. I have feelings too, you know.”

“Oh, do you?” 

“Look,” Sakusa sighs. “I didn’t want to come, but Atsumu asked me.”

“Ha, you’re whipped.”

He glares at him. Rintarou just smirks. Two can play at this game of shame. 

But Sakusa refuses to play. Apparently, there’s such a thing as “maturity.” Go figure. 

“I don’t know what happened between you and Osamu-san—”

“Oh,  _ really now _ ?” 

Is Sakusa really living with Atsumu, the biggest gossip whore there is?

“— _ but _ ”—and it’s a “but” that sounds like Sakusa wants to leap off the Tokyo tower because Rintarou is just not that great of a company—“ _ figure it out _ . You’re not children. You’re two fucking grown men with the finances to play around. You make me sick looking at you when you have this  _ woe is me _ air to you.”

“I do not.”

“ _ Don’t _ test me right now,” Sakusa seethes. He swirls a glass of wine and sips it slowly. 

Rintarou can’t help but wonder if alcohol is all Sakusa drinks. It’s a cleanser, isn’t it? Like alcohol wipes? Does he sweat like the rest of them, or does he just glisten expensive Domaine Romanée-Contis? 

“If you hate sitting here with me so much, then why’d you say yes in the first place?” 

Atsumu wouldn’t like it if Sakusa said no, but it’s not like Atsumu could stay mad at Sakusa for long. If Sakusa is whipped, then Atsumu is just  _ gone _ .

But Sakusa’s answer is surprisingly more heartfelt than he’d expected. 

He sets down his glass and looks out the tinted windows. They’re sixty stories off the ground. 

“Because I owe you,” Sakusa says quietly. He taps the table with his finger; it seems like a habit of his because he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. “You helped me at the wedding. I never thanked you for that.”

“Oh,” Rintarou says, taken aback. He sits up straighter. Suddenly, he feels like there are standards he has to match. Is this what being around Sakusa feels like? How exhausting. “I freaked out back then. I think that kind of balances out whatever I did to ‘help.’ So consider your debt erased.”

Sakusa clicks his tongue as if to say  _ like I listen to others, don’t order me around _ . Now that Rintarou thinks about it, he and Atsumu are truly made for each other. Arrogant assholes.

“Not quite,” Sakusa says like he’s remorseful about the fact that  _ Rintarou _ had to be the one to help him. Maybe he  _ would _ have preferred Kita, 2016 incident or not. “Because if it weren’t for you, I really don’t think I would be where I am right now.”

The light glints off Sakusa’s metal band. It’s on his ring finger; it’s his promise. 

Rintarou shrugs. “You would’ve gotten there eventually. Didn’t you know? Two idiots are like magnets. They find other idiots.”

“Are you calling me an idiot?”

“I’m calling Atsumu a big enough idiot to make up for two people, and  _ you’re _ the one filling in the remaining braincell slot that’s supposed to be in charge of you both.”

Sakusa looks satisfied with that assessment. Prick. 

“Good. Then let me tell you what I think. You once told me that we keep trying even if we’re not sure of the future. Those words helped me remember why I bothered saying yes to Atsumu in the first place. Well, I’m here to tell you to fucking make up your mind.”

“I feel attacked.” 

“Good.”

Rintarou grimaces. 

Sakusa pulls out his wallet, but it’s not because their check has come. He places a card on the table, and slides it to Rintarou. It’s a business card. 

“I can’t tell you what to do—god I don’t need your life on my conscience—but I can at least give you the opportunity to figure some shit out.”

Rintarou looks at the card. He raises an eyebrow. 

“Is this… is this nepotism?”

“Close,” Sakusa says without batting an eye. “My family are sponsors for the team, but just that by itself won’t get you anywhere. That falls on you. Point is, if you feel like trying, struggle. If you struggle, then that means something’s working. Or at least on the road to working. Consider it.” 

Then he sips his Domaine Romanée-Contis and asks the waiter about dessert.

\--

If someone were to ask Rintarou whether he has any regrets, he would say he doesn’t. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about ‘what ifs’ or ‘could have beens’; it’s just that his life has turned out the way it has because of all the things that built him up. 

Life is a recipe. Take one thing out or add one thing in, and the end product is different than what it would be otherwise. It might still be similar, and it might not even taste any different than if you had used the original ingredients, but there will always be the sense that something is missing, or the knowledge that something has changed. And it stays with you. 

You continue to wonder if it could have been better, and after a while, you experiment. You create new recipes and try out different combinations. You search the recesses of your memory for things that might work out better, and when you try it out, you’re amazed at the nuance one little ingredient has on its flavor.

But life can’t be redone. It’s the final preparation. There are no redos when each and every plate is your last. 

So though Rintarou reaches back to all the moments in his life leading up to this moment, the thing that he always comes back to is the time Osamu tells him to go to Tokyo. 

Flushed with excitement from their new relationship, and feeling anxious and tense by the prospect of their tepid futures, Osamu takes the lead. He already made his plans clear to Rintarou during their second year. He wants to stay in Hyogo and attend a local culinary school. 

But Rintarou’s different. He has invitations to try out for volleyball teams all over the country, and even has a few offers for a place on second-string, no try-out required. Yet the common factor between all of them is that each and every one of them will take him far away from Osamu. 

“You should take it,” Osamu says one day during winter. They’re cuddled together under the kotatsu. They played rock-paper-scissors earlier, so Rintarou’s the little spoon. His legs tangle with Osamu under the blanket.

“Which one?” Rintarou asks as Osamu runs a hand through his hair. It tickles. 

“Any of them. All of them,” Osamu says, joking. He wraps his arms around Rintarou.

“My dad’s getting transferred back to Tokyo, so I was thinking about a team from there…”

Osamu just hums as he squeezes Rintarou. So warm. 

What Rintarou doesn’t say is that he’s not sure about leaving Osamu. It’s scary, being so vulnerable. He doesn’t know what will happen if he leaves, so he wants to stay. 

But if Osamu realizes Rintarou’s anxiety, he doesn’t clue him in. 

Instead, he just says, “Oh, that’ll be nice. Tokyo boy going back to his Tokyo roots.”

There are things Rintarou could do to stay closer to Osamu. He could try out for the team Atsumu plans to sign with, though there’s no guarantee they’ll even look at him since their current middle blockers don’t show any signs of retiring or transferring. He could even give up volleyball. Playing professionally isn’t something that’s essential in his life; he plays because it’s fun and he’s good at it. But it’d be a hard sell. He didn’t take any college entrance exams this year, forgoing them in favor of playing, and he’s not quite sure where he’d live since his parents are returning to Tokyo. Osamu is planning on camping out at his parents’ for the next four years. 

But at the end of the day, he’s insecure and embarrassed, so he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t tell Osamu that what he really wants to hear is Osamu asking him to stay. He doesn’t tell him that seven years down the line, this will be one of his ‘what ifs’ that he’ll continue to come back to, wondering if maybe changing this tiny ingredient in his life will change the flavor entirely. 

He buries the thought because he’s being dramatic and he’s still young.

Which is exactly what Osamu tells him when Rintarou brings up the topic of “them.”

Osamu arches his neck so Rintarou can see his face. “Are ya breaking up with me? While we’re in the kotatsu? That’s awful.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, idiot.” And also, what does the kotatsu have anything to do with it?

“Oh good,” Osamu says like he’s playing along with a joke. Rintarou doesn’t understand what the joke is here. Maybe the joke is on him. “Cause I don’t wanna let ya go.”

For a minute, Rintarou’s heart lifts. 

_ Osamu doesn’t want to let him go _ .

Maybe Osamu feels the same way as Rintarou. 

But as soon as Rintarou opens his mouth to ask, Osamu says, “But I can’t be selfish. Pretty soon, yer gonna be out there in Tokyo, living the high life as yer stuffing balls and stuffing yer face with chuupets and Starbucks.”

Rintarou deflates, but it’s not noticeable. He leans back into Osamu’s chest. 

Osamu takes Rintarou’s fingers, playing with them. Whereas Osamu’s fingers are thicker, Rintarou’s have always been on the slender side. 

Osamu talks like he’s drifting on a cloud. He sounds so at ease that it calms Rintarou down, too. “But we’ll be fine. We’re both young. We’ll make things work. You’ll be out there playing volleyball against ‘Tsumu, and I’ll be in the back waiting with onigiri to comfort one or both of ya losers when the game’s over.”

Rintarou sits up, slightly rankled. “And why are we both losers?”

Osamu grins and kisses Rintarou on the ear, snuggling close against him. “Cause I’m the obvious winner, scoring business with two deep pockets who have no choice but to pay up. I’ll give ya a discount though, since yer pretty cute.”

At the time, Rintarou was comforted by the thought. He believed Osamu’s words. They’ll be fine; they’ll make things work. And it did, for about seven years.

Looking back, Osamu always seemed so confident about his future, but maybe he was also just playing things by ear. Rintarou was leaving him, and he had to be the one to put on a brave face. In that moment, he put Rintarou ahead of himself. They both like to do that: be self-sacrificial in the stupidest ways before eventually doing something even stupider that will out them both as idiots even though everybody already knows that. 

So though Rintarou occasionally thinks about the ‘what ifs’ and ‘could have beens,’ especially this one moment in the winter of their third year, there’s no use. It simply takes him in a circle, and by the time he makes it around the circuit once, he wonders why he bothered boarding in the first place. 

Instead, he’d rather take a different train. One that, in contrast, has no destination. It shuttles into the unknown, taking you to places you didn’t even realize had tracks. 

Life is like a recipe. It has flavor; it has depth. But there’s also no one “right” recipe. There are variations, or even completely new evolutions. 

He might not be able to change what’s already been set out, but he can control what is waiting in preparation.

\--

He calls Sakusa first, just to get his bearings straight, and also because he’s slightly scared by the gold-tipped Sakusa family business card in his possession. Sakusa sounds annoyed, but if there’s anything Rintarou’s learned from his teammate Komori about the overly blunt man, it’s that once he starts something, he sees it through. He answers all of Rintarou’s questions.

Next, he calls Atsumu. He’s not the first to know, but at least he isn’t the last this time, and he definitely doesn’t find out  _ after _ the deal is already done, like so many other times. He must have been eavesdropping on Sakusa’s phone call with Rintarou, however, because as soon as Atsumu picks up, his first words are, “ _ Well, finally ya grew some balls! _ ”

Rintarou hangs up. 

Next, he talks to Komori. It’s mid-season, so maybe this isn’t the kind of thing his teammate would like to hear, but he’s also Rintarou’s closest friend here, and he really owes him a lot. He goes over his plan with the libero. He talks all at once, leaving barely any room for breath, and once he’s done, he asks nervously, “So, what do you think?”

Komori just looks at him long and hard. Then he smiles small. “Did you really need to tell me all of this? It looks like you’ve already made up your mind. Though, if you want my honest opinion, it’s super cheesy.”

Rintarou blooms. 

_ Good _ . He wants it to be cheesy. He wants it to be so sappy that it begins to sound genuine, and he hopes it sounds genuine because it is. 

Komori looks out at Meguro River with Rintarou. He’s going to miss this view. 

“It’s gonna be weird around here without somebody else to sass Kiyo and Atsumu.”

“I won’t be far,” Rintarou says, suddenly feeling a gap between his old life and the one that’s just beginning to take form. 

Komori shakes his head. He looks refreshed, like all these months finally meant something. “Yes, you will. But you’ll be happy.”

Rintarou nods slowly. That’s the hope. 

Snow takes the place of leaves on the trees. 

Lastly, Rintarou visits his parents. 

It’s the end of the night, after they’ve already filled their bellies with warm beef stew and after they’ve watched maybe three rerun episodes of Detective Conan. His parents start to settle into their night routine, preparing to go to bed, and that’s when Rintarou pops the question.

He’s nervous, jittery, and maybe feels a bit like backing out, but he steels his courage. He’s not the same insecure boy from seven years ago. He’s not stuck in the past; he’s living in the present.

“Hey, Mom, Dad, how do you feel about Osaka for New Year’s from now on?”

[December, 2019] 

They never let up on their video calls and phone conversations. Even after the incident that took place the night of Osamu’s birthday, they kept talking like before. 

It was a little awkward and a little tense; for a while, he wasn’t sure if they were even listening to each other anymore, too caught up in what had happened. But eventually, they slid back into comfort. 

And now Rintarou wants to break that comfort. 

He waits at the train station. He has the week off for Christmas and New Year’s, and Osamu has taken the weekend off from work to come visit. This will be the eighth winter they’ll have spent together. 

As he checks his phone, there are no new updates from Osamu. He waits, chilly, in the cold. He bought hot chocolate earlier, and when he grew too warm from that, he started waiting outside. 

It’s cloudy, a little gray, and snow flitters like wings to the ground. 

He lets out a breath, watching as the air around his face fogs up like a mirror, and when he hears the train pull in, he tosses his empty cup in the garbage, and goes to pick up his man.

Osamu has a duffel thrown over his shoulder. He’s wearing jeans and a long, dark blue parka. Even under thick layers, there’s no mistaking how handsome he is.

Rintarou holds his hand out. “Give me that.”

Osamu narrows his eyes. This feels like deja vu. He grips the handle of his duffel bag tighter, suddenly very protective of his stuff. 

“Why?”

“So I can put it in a locker, now give it here,” Rintarou says, reaching for the bag and pulling it away effortlessly. Osamu doesn’t even put up a fight. 

“What are we doing? I thought we were gonna go straight to yer apartment,” Osamu says as Rintarou finishes the deposit for the locker and has Osamu’s duffel stuffed to the brim inside. He hopes there isn’t anything breakable inside. 

“We will,” Rintarou says as they walk out of the station. “But later. Right now, I’ve got an itinerary, and you’re coming with me.”

After they’ve been walking for a few minutes, Rintarou notices how chilly Osamu is. He doesn’t have on gloves or a scarf, and his cheeks have begun to bloom pink. He probably left them behind in Osaka or left them in the bag that they stuffed in the locker. 

With no hesitation, Rintarou offers his hand. Osamu stares at it, blinking. Is Rintarou asking him to take it? This isn’t the kind of things “friends” do, even if one of them has fingers close to frostbite. 

But Rintarou continues holding his hand out. “I don’t bite.”

Osamu chuckles nervously. He clears his throat. “Uh, that’s not what I’m thinking.”

Rintarou takes the plunge. He smiles. “Do you trust me?”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?” he repeats. He trusts Osamu, and he only hopes Osamu trusts him. 

Osamu looks at him, long and considering. Finally, after careful thought, he takes Rintarou’s hand. It’s cold, but it warms Rintarou. “Yeah,” he says, though there’s slight trepidation. He acts like there’s a camera crew waiting to ambush him.

Rintarou chuckles. He takes off his right glove, hands it to Osamu, and holds Osamu’s bare left hand in his right before stuffing them both in his pocket where it’s warm. 

They haven’t done this in a long time. 

The snow comes down heavier now. He should have brought an umbrella. 

But it’s pretty, and as flakes land in Osamu’s hair and on his lashes, it makes Osamu pretty, too.

“I’m glad,” Rintarou says, breathing in. He feels light as air. It’s like it’s the first time.

\--

They have dinner at an Italian restaurant in Shinjuku and catch up. After that, they walk around Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden and feel the fresh snow crinkle beneath their shoes as they walk off their food. 

Osamu doesn’t understand why they got off the Chuo line here until he asks and Rintarou tells him it’s because it’s close to his new apartment. 

Osamu is taken aback. “Ya  _ moved _ ?” 

Rintarou shrugs. 

Letting out a breath, Osamu tips his head back and looks up at the gray sky. It’s completely unobscured, just a few dead branches here and there. Snow melts on his face. “Wow, guess a lot has changed.”

“Yeah.”

A lot has. It’s not a bad thing. 

Rintarou takes Osamu to the shogi hall. It’s normally filled after dinner, which makes it perfect.

Osamu crushes his first three opponents, but he finds his match in his fourth opponent, an elderly man who could honestly pass for Osamu’s great-great-grandfather. It’s no wonder the two get along well. 

The game lasts for almost an hour, and when it finally ends, Osamu accepts the loss with grace. He exchanges laughs and smiles with the old man, and is pleasantly surprised to learn the old man has a social media account. 

Onigiri Miya gains one new follower that day.

Rintarou loves the twinkle in Osamu’s eye. He sits in the old man’s spot after Osamu takes a swig of Pocari from the bottle Rintarou got him. He looks absolutely brilliant as he smiles at Rintarou.

“I didn’t think yer ‘itinerary’ would include this,” Osamu says, chuckling. “Ya sure ya aren’t bored? We can always dip out and do what ya have planned next.”

Those words really should have come three hours earlier back when he was creaming his first opponent to oblivion, but Osamu was so lost in the headspace of a challenge that Rintarou also lost himself in watching him. The time passed by all too quickly.

Rintarou shakes his head. Instead, he starts moving pieces around on the board. 

He’s not a good player, but he at least has some of the basics down. That, and he has a good memory, so he can recall specific plays from the middle of a game if he tries hard enough. 

“You’re not blowing me off yet,” Rintarou says, smiling softly. He rearranges the pieces so it mimics what was on the board earlier when Osamu was giving the old man a hard time. “I don’t get why you made the move you did here. Show me again so I understand.”

Osamu gapes. His eyes dart back between the board and Rintarou. Rintarou waits patiently for Osamu’s instruction, maybe a beatdown of his own in the game. When he realizes Rintarou isn’t passing off feigned interest and that he actually looks sincere, Osamu rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. 

“Ah, jeez. I just lost. Ya seriously want me to relive the pain?” he complains, but there’s no bite in it. In fact, he’s  _ mirthful _ . He’s laughing. There are stars in his eyes and dimples in his cheeks. 

_ This _ is the Osamu he loves to see; this is the Osamu he loves, period. He loves all of Osamu, but he thinks he loves him when he’s touched, when he’s happy, when he’s so brimming with  _ life _ , the most. 

“No,” Rintarou says. He holds himself back from cupping Osamu’s cheek.  _ Not yet _ . “Just learning from our mistakes. Help me?”

\--

They end the night back in Rintarou’s apartment after returning to the station locker for Osamu’s things.

Osamu’s first reaction to the apartment is, “I love it.” That fills Rintarou with pride. 

Osamu’s second reaction is then mournful, like he immediately realizes why Rintarou chose this apartment. When he asks when Rintarou bought it, he all but confirms his suspicions. He stares wistfully at the island counter in the kitchen, runs his hands over the clear marble, before stopping at Rintarou’s living room bookshelf filled with magazines, novels, journals, and more recently, picture frames. He doesn’t say anything about the pictures, but Rintarou kind of wishes he had. 

They sit on opposite sides of the couch watching “The Good Place” because Osamu never finished and it happened to be pulled up on Rintarou’s Netflix feed. After watching through about three episodes, they make it to the fourth before Osamu stops. 

Right where the show is paused, Michael confesses to Chidi that soulmates aren’t real in the Good Place; they’re a creation of the mind, but that if anything, people don’t find each other because they’re fated or destined, but because they  _ try _ . 

Rintarou feels sentimental in his second run.

“This show is depressing,” Osamu says.  _ But it’s a comedy _ , Rintarou thinks.

Rintarou sits up. “Why?”

“It just is.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because,” Osamu says, biting down on his cheek. He looks like a squirrel. “They aren’t going to end up together. This limbo between life and the afterlife can’t last forever. At some point, they’re all gonna have to leave, and when they do, they’ll lose each other.”

It’s valid, but it kind of misses the point.

He turns his body so he faces Osamu. He pulls his legs up on the couch and stares at him. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

Osamu harks a laugh. “Fuck no. That shit’s like the mind baby of shoujo manga and desperate middle-aged women.”

“Harsh.”

“Ya think?” Osamu says, leaning back. He’s getting comfortable. He wraps his arms around his knees and pulls them close. “He’s right, isn’t he? Soulmates aren’t real, otherwise people wouldn’t go through so much heartbreak in their lives.”  
“So do you think ‘soulmates’ are made, not given?”

Osamu quiets. He’s lost in his thoughts. “Not sure.”

The radiator kicks in. Outside, the snow is pretty. 

Rintarou turns off the TV and stands up. It’s late. 

Osamu blinks, then looks up at Rintarou. His eyes are hazy before recognition seeps in. “Oh, right. Show me where yer futon is.”

Rintarou starts grabbing their mugs and brings them over to the kitchen island counter. He leaves them in the sink to wash up in the morning. “Don’t have one.”

“What.”

“Just got a bed in my room. No futons in this household.”

“Then where am I supposed to sleep?” He starts examining the couch and checking whether or not his neck will live through the crick the armrest is sure to give him. God, his body is so  _ long _ , too, he won’t even fit on the couch.

Rintarou extinguishes all assumptions when he comes back over to the couch and offers his hand. 

“You’re with me.”

“Yer kidding.”

“I’m not.”

Osamu waves his hands in the air. “Fuck that, I’ll take the couch.”

Rintarou raises an eyebrow. “With your high-maintenance back? I don’t think so.”

Osamu opens and shuts his mouth like he’s struggling. “I… Rin, if this has to do with that thing I tried on my birthday—”

“It doesn’t,” Rintarou says, bending down until he squats in front of Osamu. He looks up into his dark eyes. They swirl like Da Vinci’s “Starry Night.”

“I was drunk that day, and I wasn’t thinking, so—”

“Do you trust me?” Rintarou asks. Unlike before, Osamu takes even longer to hesitate this time. “I won’t force you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, but this is what I want. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I just want you to sleep well.” 

There’s no deeper intention than Rintarou just wants to be close to Osamu, to feel him there, and know he’s real. 

“I…” Osamu bites his lip, helpless. He can’t stop staring at Rintarou, and Rintarou can’t stop staring back. Osamu’s ears tint pink. Then, he nods, small. “Okay,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself. Then he says it again, but with more confidence. “Okay, yeah, I trust ya.”

He takes Rintarou’s hand, and Rintarou has no plans on letting go. 

\--

He wakes up at 4:30 am. For a person who hates mornings and whose go-to is always coffee or Monster at 1 pm in the afternoon when he finally  _ does _ arise on off-days, he had to try hard to teach his body to wake up this early. It’s necessary though, because this is how early Osamu wakes up each morning to go to the shop and start prep. 

But when he peels open his eyes, Osamu is still deeply asleep. He’s curled against Rintarou’s chest, head dipped in the space between Rintarou’s shoulder and chest, and he looks peaceful. His snores are soft. 

For a half an hour, he spares the details of his ‘plan’ and just spends it indulging in watching the gentle lifts in Osamu’s shoulders and the way his nose crinkles whenever he twitches into a loud snore. 

Around 5 am, Osamu wakes up, and Rintarou doesn’t even pretend he wasn’t just watching him in his sleep. 

Osamu doesn’t move from his spot, but he doesn’t snuggle closer either. “Yer a creep,” he says.

“Thanks,” Rintarou replies before breathing in deeply. He tosses the covers off of them and gets up. He throws open his curtains. It’s still dark outside. 

Osamu rubs his eyes, exhaustion coursing through his body. “What’re ya doing?”

Rintarou tosses clothes at the man, so he can change. He himself makes his way to the bathroom so he can brush his teeth. “Get dressed. We’re heading out.”

\--

An hour later, they’re on the earliest train on the Yamanote line before switching to the Rinkai line. It takes about forty minutes to get there, but when they do, it’s as desolate as a national park campsite in winter and as beautiful as Venus brought down to earth.

They take the stairs down the Tennozu Isle Boardwalk until they’re standing by the railing, overlooking the gently crashing water. The heavy snow from yesterday has been recently cleared, but that doesn’t stop a thin sheet of fresh snow from covering the boardwalk. 

Osamu sniffles, and hikes the collar of his parka up further so it reaches his ears. Rintarou gives him his hat. 

He’s never been to Tennozu Isle Boardwalk, never really saw what there was to enjoy about water, water, and more water. He guesses Osamu doesn’t either, though they’ve never talked about it explicitly. But he’s heard good things about this place, and if his plan fails, then at least his heart doesn’t break for a second time in a place where he has memories. 

The sun doesn’t rise for another forty minutes. Rintarou breathes out as he grips his hands on the railing. The metal burns his fingers like a stove.

Osamu comes up behind him. Either consciously or unconsciously, he drifts closer to Rintarou to steal his body heat. 

“So ya gonna tell me why we came out here at 7 am on a weekend, or am I just supposed to enjoy the view because this is part of yer ‘itinerary’?”

Rintarou nods his head up and down, like he’s not processing a word Osamu says. He is; he just doesn’t know how to begin. 

So he starts from the beginning.

“I love you,” he says, loudly. The sound travels across the dock. 

That’s his beginning, no, that’s  _ their _ beginning. Him loving Osamu is where their story begins. 

Osamu chokes. He mumbles something and starts pacing across the dock before circling back to where Rintarou has not moved. He jabs his finger angrily at Rintarou; his words cut the air. 

“I  _ knew _ there was something going on when ya started doing all these nice things. Rin, I thought we made it  _ clear _ that this wasn’t going to work like that.”

Calmly, Rintarou just repeats himself and says “I love you.” 

Melting, Osamu slumps over the railing, helpless. He despairs. “Rin…”

“No,” he says, rather childishly, “Will you listen to me first before you start dying on me?”

Osamu peeks through his fingers. He’s miserable, but he pouts. “Fine. What.”

Nodding gently, Rintarou turns to stare out at the water again. The city lights reflect back. He tries to figure out how to begin. 

He thinks to start from their first year in high school, but then he backtracks. Love isn’t linear. So he starts from a year ago.

“You once asked me if I’ve ever thought about what my wedding vows would be.”

Osamu kicks the railing, knocking off a bit of snow. “Yeah, and ya said ya never thought about it.”

“That’s true,” Rintarou says. He slowly clasps and unclasps his hands. “I hadn’t. Not at that point. But I’ve thought about them a lot recently. What I would say, how I would say it,  _ who _ I would say them to—it doesn’t feel like anything I say will be good enough, and even now I’m scrambling to revise or throw out my speech entirely.”

“Rin…?” Osamu says, eyes growing wide. He straightens. 

“This is probably out of order, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt anybody if I did the vows first before the ceremony.”

“Oh my god,” Osamu says. He covers his mouth with his hand. 

Rintarou takes that as his cue and steps to the side. It’s difficult because Osamu doesn’t want to move his hand away from his face, too embarrassed to not hide, but Rintarou gently coaxes him until he has both of his hands in his own. 

Osamu’s eyes glisten, and his lips are trembling. Rintarou can’t imagine what must be surging through Osamu’s head right now because he’s too caught up in figuring out his next words, so instead he thumbs Osamu’s hands tenderly. 

The ocean doesn’t make for a great string quartet playing the wedding march, but it’ll have to do. 

“I love you, Miya Osamu,” Rintarou begins, smiling softly. He’s already lost in the way Osamu blinks heartfully at him. “Since our second year first semester when you came into my room, threw a mannequin hand at my head, and yelled at me to grow some balls because the world wasn’t going to end just because everybody now knew I was gay, I knew that the crush I felt then wasn’t ever going to go away.” 

He watches as Osamu leans into the memory, maybe finding laughter, maybe finding confusion, but he leans in regardless and Rintarou is grateful.

“I could go on about how your kindness lifted me up whenever I was in a dark spot, or how your smiles made me feel like every day was worth listening to your terrible humor, but those words are both overdone and cheesy, and they aren’t enough to encompass everything that I feel about you. Because you make me feel full. You help me find sanity in this messed-up life.” 

He takes a breath. Osamu waits, rapt, and it’s almost enough to make Rintarou falter, but he catches himself. He’s written and scrapped the words a thousand times, but each time, he returns back to them. Because it’s the crux. 

He squeezes Osamu’s hand, steadying himself. “Our break-up was the hardest thing I ever had to go through. For weeks, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat well; I couldn’t do anything without suddenly bursting into tears and worrying my parents and everyone else around me. I set off a lot of alarms. Apparently I entered a “neo-emo” phase. So then I started feigning normalcy. If not for myself, then for them. I went through the motions of what I thought I was like before and replicated it all until it was like I wasn’t even human anymore. I was hurting; I had lost something, and it was like I had lost myself. 

“But it also gave me time to think. Time to think about things that I could have done better or what I could have said to keep you from leaving me. But then I realized that those things are wasted in thinking about the past.

“So I started thinking about the future. About me. About you. About  _ us _ . I thought about what I would do better, if given a second chance. And for you, Miya Osamu, to give you the promises you deserve.” 

Here, Rintarou takes a deep breath. The ocean strings crescendo.

“You deserve a person who will stand by your side even through hard times, not like I did in leaving you behind. You deserve a person who will listen and ask you questions about your life, even if the thing in question is the most mundane thing in the world, because you deserve the world, and you deserve someone who loves your life and everything it includes. You deserve someone who wakes up in the early morning to make you breakfast, because you’re surprisingly a deep sleeper, even though you need an alarm to wake you up at 4:30 every morning to get ready for work. You deserve patience, faithfulness, and earnestness—you deserve everything under the sky and to the moon. You deserve all of that and more.”

Osamu hiccups. He grips Rintarou’s hands tighter, squeezing them painfully. “I can’t tell if yer talking about yerself or if yer talking about some robot, in which case I don’t want them.”

Rintarou smiles. He squeezes back, taking the pain before letting it flutter away in the wind. “These are things you deserve, ‘Samu, and these are things I’m promising you.”

Osamu sobs harder. He’s a mess. “Are you kidding me?”

“I asked you yesterday whether you believe in soulmates; today, I give you my answer. They do. Because they’re both found and they’re made. If I never found you, I would never have worked so hard to get to this spot. If I didn’t try in making things work in the first place, we never would have gotten very far at all.”

Clutching onto Rintarou’s shirt, Osamu nestles his head against his chest. Rintarou rocks him gently, resting his head on top of his as they sway with the incoming tides. It’s like a melody.

“What a dummy,” Osamu sniffs. “I keep telling ya, soulmates are just a mind baby born of degenerates.”

“Are you saying teenaged and middle-aged girls are degenerates?”

“Fuck yeah, I am.”

Rintarou pats Osamu’s back, then moves toward soothing circles. It calms them both. 

His voice is gentle, thoughtful, like he’s taking his time picking up twigs off the ground after a cooling summer storm. “I’ll probably mess up a lot in the future, so call me out when I do. I’ll probably also enlist the help of Atsumu and Komori to make sure I don’t screw things up too terribly. But even if things go sour, even if things freeze over, will you let me stay in your life? Will you give me that honor? I have no idea what the future has for us—oh god, I don’t even know what’s going to happen in the next ten minutes—but I want to take things with you in stride, day by day, inch by inch, minute by minute. Can you give me that? Can I be in your life until that last minute? Until that last second?”

Rintarou pulls back and lifts Osamu’s chin so he can see his face. It’s tear-stricken, red, puffy, and snotty. He should look gross, but instead Rintarou just falls in love with him all over again. 

It surprises Rintarou when Osamu reaches up to catch the tears running down Rintarou’s cheeks. 

He hadn’t realized he was also crying.

Osamu bites his lip. “I love you, too, Rin. That’s never stopped. But how does any of this change our situation?”

Rintarou wipes his tears and leans his forehead against Osamu’s. He gathers his courage.

“I talked to Atsumu—”

“Oh my god, he’s infected ya. That’s why ya started doing the sappy vows.”

“Not quite,” Rintarou says, brushing his thumb against Osamu’s cheek, under his eye right where he likes it. “I talked to Atsumu and Omi. And though there’s a  _ small _ chance their team won’t accept me, I’ve got pretty good odds.”

Osamu gasps. 

Rintarou likes that reaction. It’s like a kid blowing out the birthday candles. 

Osamu whispers, “No way.” Then, louder, “No way!” He punches Rintarou in the chest. 

“Fuck,” Rintarou groans, cradling his chest. It hurts. Osamu doesn’t look at all guilty. But that doesn’t matter, because Osamu is smiling, and Rintarou is, too. He can’t help himself, not when he’s with Osamu. “Yeah,” Rintarou says, breathless. It’s probably the adrenaline rush. “If things work out well, I’ll be stuck on a team with your annoying brother again.”

“But Rin,” Osamu says suddenly. He pinches Rintarou’s bicep. That hurts, too. “Why now?” 

_ Why now? Why leave Tokyo after all this time? _ is what Osamu really means. 

“Because I was scared,” he admits, brushing a matted strand of hair from Osamu’s forehead. “Because  _ change _ is scary. Because back during our third year when we were making plans to leave each other, I was scared of losing you and so I left first. But I never realized how badly  _ actually _ ,  _ really _ losing you would feel. And if I had to compare, I’d say losing you is the scariest thing of all.”

Osamu shakes his head. “I don’t want to be the reason you give up your life for me.”

“I’m not giving up my life for you,” Rintarou says, and it sounds a little funny. Like he’s sacrificing his life for Osamu in a gunfight. He’d do that, too. “I’m adding to my life so I can live  _ with _ you. In the words of wrinkly old church priests: in times of hardship and in times of blessing, I want to live with you. Do you accept my vows, Miya Osamu?”

Osamu shudders violently, sobbing. He cups Rintarou’s cheeks. He pulls him in until they’re less than a centimeter apart. 

Osamu’s voice is a whisper. He’s laughing as he cries. “Does this mean we have to get married now?”

The vows got flipped with the ceremony, he means. 

Rintarou smiles, and as he does, the sun starts to rise. 

It’s a soft orange, and it’s pretty. It dances off of Osamu’s skin, and his wet eyes twinkle like stars. He’s beautiful, always. 

“Only if you want to.”

“I don’t need a marriage, ya know. I’m not ‘Tsumu. All I want is you, to be with you, and know ya won’t ever let go.”

_ That _ , Rintarou thinks, is something he doesn’t even need to promise. He intends to do that either way.

He chuckles, closes his eyes, and when he feels Osamu lean in to close that centimeter distance, he murmurs, “I won’t.”

[January 2020] 

“I can’t  _ believe _ ya never told yer parents we broke up!” Osamu mutters as he walks hand-in-hand with Rintarou down the streets of Nakameguro. They stroll along Meguro River, taking in the cold landscape one last time before Osamu has to catch his train. Osamu had taken another weekend off from work in order to come up and help Rintarou figure some stuff out, now that there’s this whole project to move him down to Osaka. 

That and to make up for nearly six months of separation. Which means sex. Lots of sex. 

Rintarou has a bag of badminton rackets thrown over his shoulder. He shrugs, not seeing why Osamu is making such a big deal out of it. 

“It’s not like it really matters. You’re the only boy I’ve ever brought home anyway. Even if we broke up, they’d still consider you their son.”

“Ya don’t get it!” Osamu moans. “The  _ look _ in their eyes—that confusion when I told them I was sorry, then the awkward air when I told them we had broken up for six months. It’s embarrassing!”

Rintarou kisses him to shut him up before leading him to a crepe store he and Komori once visited after badminton with his dad and his dad’s friends. 

“Relax, they barely blinked.”

“But  _ Rin _ —”

“My, what a whiny boyfriend I have,” Rintarou teases, reaching over to pinch Osamu’s nose and move his head side-to-side. 

With a higher-pitch nasally voice, Osamu glowers and says, “My boyfriend doesn’t care about how I feel. I see how it is. I’m borrowing yer shower alone then.”

_ Abort, abort _ .

Rintarou tries to coax his way back into Osamu’s good graces. He lets go of his nose and begins petting his hair. “You’re absolutely valid.”

“Yer absolutely full of horse shit.”

“I love you?”

“I love you, too, ya prick,” Osamu gripes. He then follows the scent of fresh dough and fruit until he discovers the crepe shop on his own. His nose is like a dog’s. 

As they stand by the waiting dock for their order, Osamu mentions casually, “Yer dad’s coworkers are nice. They’re also  _ really _ good at playing. Though they’ve got nothing on yer mom.”

Rintarou’s mom joined them today. Normally she doesn’t because she insists that the boys, particularly when in a group, are too stupid for her to handle. However, today was the first day in over six months that she would see Osamu again, so she ended up participating. Turns out, she’s a two-time record holder in singles’ badminton from high school, and Rintarou only found out about it now. 

The more you know.

“Yeah,” Rintarou replies whimsically. 

He thinks about Takagi-san and his reaction to Rintarou many many months ago when he learned that the Suna’s only son was gay. It’d been frigid and a little awkward then, but today when he introduced Osamu as his boyfriend, Takagi-san was nothing but genial. It’s nice.

Osamu receives his strawberry banana crepe—it’s big enough for two people, but of course he isn’t going to share with Rintarou—and takes a big bite. Through a stuffed mouth, he asks, “So when are ya coming down to Osaka for try-outs?”

Osamu gets cream on his chin, but he doesn’t notice. His cheeks are like a chipmunk’s and his eyes are sparkling. It’s endearing. 

Rintarou licks the end of his sleeve and wipes the cream from Osamu’s face. 

“Depends. If my performance is good during the season, then I won’t even need to try out. They’ll just take me. It also helps that I’m already a professional player with years of experience.”

Osamu pouts. This is something that happens more often now; they’re more honest about their feelings. It’s a good thing. Though it also does serious damage to Rintarou’s heart HP whenever he sees Osamu pout, because it’s too cute. They should’ve made this a thing earlier.

“What?” Rintarou asks softly. He feels like caramel drizzle on an ice cream sundae when Osamu looks like that.

“Nothing,” Osamu says, sulking like a five-year-old. “Just wanted ya to come down, was all.”

“I will,” Rintarou says.

“No, but I mean  _ before _ the season ends.”

“I will,” Rintarou repeats, smiling. “Your apartment is a bit small for two people, don’t you think?”

Osamu’s eyes widen. He almost drops his crepe. It’s a good thing he doesn’t, or else he might start crying over lost food. 

“Are ya serious?”

“I’ve already started looking. Only online, of course. I have Omi helping me out, too.” The Sakusa family knows no bounds nor limits once they set their minds to something. “Though if you don’t want to…”

This time Osamu does drop his crepe, but he doesn’t care, because what is more important to him at that moment is glomping Rintarou and kissing the living daylights out of him for all the denizens of Meguro River to see. 

Rintarou just laughs into the kiss, tasting whipped cream and strawberries. 

[February 2020]

They have a two-day tournament at Osaka Municipal Gymnasium over Valentine’s Day weekend, and Rintarou takes full advantage of it. 

Immediately after their last game on Sunday, Rintarou makes up for his late Valentine’s Day celebration with Osamu by buying him roses and maybe a bottle of chocolate-flavored lube as a gag gift (it’s not a gag gift). Osamu reciprocates by making an onigiri in the likeness of Rintarou, using seaweed for the hair, plums for the eyes, and egg for the mouth, nose, and eyebrows. (He’s not sure why the eyebrows.) But before Rintarou can say thank you, he eats it.

Rintarou blinks, taken aback. 

Wasn’t the onigiri supposed to be a present for him?

Then it hits him. 

His grin is wicked as he inches closer to Osamu. He curls a finger around Osamu’s belt loop, and pulls him closer until their bodies are flushed against each other. There’s some rice grains on Osamu’s cheeks. Rintarou licks them off.

“Was that supposed to be a hint for what’s going to happen tonight?” Rintarou asks, leaving a few wet kisses down Osamu’s neck to stake his claim.  _ Later. _

“Maybe,” Osamu says coyly. The little shit. “Or maybe I was just hungry. I could use some persuasion.”

Forget  _ later _ , Rintarou thinks.  _ Now _ , his mind screams as he’s manhandling Osamu until they’re in his bedroom, clothes haphazardly shed, and absolutely making full use of that gag gift.

Rintarou shows up to practice in Tokyo the next morning late, exhausted but absolutely glowing.

[March 2020]

Komori huffs, weary and in pain after heaving in his tenth moving box. Rintarou must have really shitty or really good luck, because every time he’s moved, the elevator’s always been out of service. This time, there’s eight flights of stairs to climb. 

Osamu follows Komori inside, carrying two boxes easily. He doesn’t even break a sweat. 

Komori stares, not at all envious. He says so to himself. “Nope, nuh-uh, no way. I can’t believe it. Must be a trick to the lighting.”

Rintarou snorts and takes the top box from Osamu, kissing him on the cheek. 

“Unfortunately for you, Komori, it’s all real. ‘Samu can bench press me, did you know?”

“No,” Komori says, horrified.

“Yes,” Osamu affirms from behind. 

Komori absolutely loses his shit. 

Rintarou was at first afraid of what might happen once Komori actually met Osamu, given his attitude toward him over the last few months after the break-up. They’d met before briefly in passing, but there was always a group, or something else to distract them. And while moving boxes into Rintarou and Osamu’s new apartment is plenty distracting, there’s also the unnecessary proximity generated by it. 

But Komori has been nothing but nice; he’d been genial, and had shown no signs of ever having started a cancel culture on Osamu. 

Komori spreads himself on the ground like a starfish. He moans. “ _ Why _ did you have to move  _ during _ the season? It’s so stressful! For  _ me _ , that is!”

Rintarou shrugs, handing dishware to Osamu, who then places it in cupboards. “We’re in Osaka this weekend anyway for the Final Stage, and this apartment’s lease happened to coincide. I’m not moving in fully until next month, but we figured I could get a head start. It’s better than what ‘Samu’s doing. He’s doing most of his moving on his own.”

“Not true,” Osamu says. He then grins like the devil. “I got ‘Tsumu helping me, too. He started all of this; he has to see it through to the end now.”

“Gross,” Rintarou laughs. He leans in for another kiss. Osamu happily receives it. “Sounds like Omi.”

At the mention of his cousin’s name, Komori whines on the floor like the little dog he is. “ _ Kiyooo _ ,  _ I miss you! _ ”

Later, after they’ve finished moving in all the boxes Rintarou brought over and after they’ve finished setting up most of it, they have dinner at a local diner down the street. Osamu pays because, “What? Can’t a hardworking food entrepreneur pay a measly bill for two of Japan’s star volleyball athletes?”

As Osamu gets up to use the restroom, Rintarou sneakily replaces Osamu’s credit card with his own as the waitress comes by to collect it. 

This is where Komori interrogates him. He slams his elbow to the table like some detective in an old movie. Rintarou’s not at all surprised.

“Is this real?”

“It is.”

“And you’re happy?”

“I am.”

“Are you okay?”

This time, Rintarou doesn’t say he’s fine or that he’s okay. Instead, he’s honest. 

“I will be,” he says. He plays with his napkin. “It’s terrifying moving twice in less than a year, and to a whole different city on top of that. I don’t have nearly the same foothold that I do in Tokyo, and I definitely don’t have you here with me to help me,” Rintarou says. 

Komori tears up. He dabs his eyes with a soiled napkin. Rintarou offers his own clean one instead. Komori takes it. 

“Fuck you, man. You went through shit, and now I don’t even get to see you completely happy at the end?”

Rintarou cringes. “Why am I suddenly dead in your mind?”

Komori ignores that and instead jabs a finger at him and says, “Tell me you’ll be okay from now on. Tell me, and I’ll be happy.”

“I can’t tell you that because I don’t even know, but I want to try and I think that matters more.”

The waterworks come heavier. Rintarou seems to be surrounded by criers these days. But that’s a good thing. Especially if it’s happy tears.

“When did you start growing up, Suna?”

\--

Komori asks to speak with Osamu alone after dinner. 

_ Uh-oh _ , Rintarou thinks. Here it comes. This is what he hoped to avoid. 

But before he can intervene on Osamu’s behalf, Osamu gives him a look before replying back to Komori, “Sure, let’s talk.”

It’s an agonizing five-minute wait before Osamu comes back, a bit dazed and a lot like he’s carrying a weight around. Komori apparently decided to leave straight for the hotel where the rest of the Raijins were staying tonight. Rintarou, on the other hand, returns back to his new apartment with Osamu.

After waiting for a solid minute in agonizing silence, Rintarou decides he can’t hold it in any longer.

“What did he say?”

“Huh?” Osamu blinks, startled by the sudden conversation. Then he looks forward again, relaxing. It’s a nice full moon night. “Oh, not much.”

They fall into silence. Rintarou holds Osamu’s hand, and Osamu squeezes. 

“I never got to tell ya I was sorry,” Osamu says after a while.

“For what?”

“For ending things the way I did without giving ya a chance.”

Rintarou furrows his brows. That’s not what he wants to hear after all this time. “Hey, that was unavoidable.”

“No, it was,” Osamu insists, stopping in the middle of the street. The streetlamps glow bright. “It  _ was _ avoidable. If I had just been open from the start, or if I had just talked to ya before everything started spiraling, then none of that would have ever happened.”

Rintarou makes quick haste to calm him. He cradles his cheeks as he presses his forehead against his. “Hey, stop that. If none of  _ that _ had ever happened, do you think we would be where we are now? Everything has its place. We just don’t know it yet.”

Osamu shakes his head, and he takes Rintarou’s hands in his. He looks sad, but he doesn’t seem like he wants to shake off Rintarou. 

“Not everything needs a retort, Rin. Sometimes I just want to stew in what I want to stew in, and let it be what it is. Let me take ownership of my part.”

“Then can I take ownership with you?” Rintarou asks, pressing a warm kiss to Osamu’s forehead. 

Osamu sighs sweetly. 

They have all night. Their rebuilding can take all the time it needs.

“That would be nice.”

[April, 2020]

The EJP Raijins don’t make it into the final, but they do make it into the Top 3, and that’s good enough for the MSBY Black Jackals to gauge Rintarou’s talent and immediately sign him on for next season. 

Osamu’s ecstatic. Right as Rintarou swings open the door to their apartment (his new  _ permanent _ residence—he’s not going anywhere), Osamu pounces on him with kisses and other fun things. 

He responds back eagerly, laughing as he goes tumbling down in the doorway. 

Osamu braces against him, straddling him. 

Osaka is officially Rintarou’s new home. 

Surprisingly, settling in doesn’t take much time. He would have figured it’d be more awkward, that’d there be more questions especially from his new teammates, but apparently Atsumu had prepared everything for him long in advance. To the point where he wishes Atsumu hadn’t. 

Hinata treats him like a saint. There are sparkles in his eyes as he crowds Rintarou’s space like a blissed-out fangirl, chirping, “Wow, Suna-san! You and Osamu-san are like the real-life story of Kaguya-hime!”

Rintarou is pretty sure that part of that is an uneducated comparison that slides in an accidental insult. He also doesn’t need the immortalization, so he just ignores Hinata. 

Sadly, everyone else on the team is more or less likewise on the same page as Hinata. 

When asked, Meian just shrugs and says, “All we know is you came here for Atsumu’s brother. Well, that and a few other, uh,  _ details _ . It’s hard not to be impressed.” 

_ Impressed by what _ , is Rintarou’s only question. 

Within a day with his new team, he’s immediately relegated to killer male lead status. 

He sure would like to kill Atsumu for that unwanted title. 

Osamu finds it all hilarious. He molds rice balls in the back of the shop while he has Chiaki in front taking orders so he can keep Rintarou company. Before Chiaki takes over the register, though, Rintarou learns that Chiaki also has neon blue hair to go with his neon blue moped. They swap Twitter handles. 

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Osamu says, humming gaily. 

“Firstly, Kaguya-hime  _ never  _ left the moon again—”

“At least he’s not saying  _ yer _ the princess.” He flicks wet rice in Rintarou’s direction. 

“Am I supposed to be flattered that he considers me the emperor then? No thanks.”

Osamu sets down the onigiri he was working on. He wipes his hands on a towel before walking over to Rintarou.

Reflexively, Rintarou wraps his arm around Osamu’s waist, tugging him in. He smells good. He smells like home. Home is Osamu.

“They’re just happy for us,” Osamu says, nibbling Rintarou’s cheek like it’s the food he makes. “Invested, too, I think. I talked a bit with Hinata at the bachelor party.”

“When? Before he got his head stuck in the railing, or  _ after _ he started playing nonexistent DDR in the lounge?”

“Between. Caught him throwing up in the punch bowl, so I chatted him up a bit.”

Rintarou lets out an amused huff. He buries his nose in Osamu’s hair, kisses him right by his ear. “Out of everyone, and I mean  _ everyone _ , you choose him?”

“Didn’t think he’d remember talking to me, but turns out he’s a pretty good listener.”

Pulling back, Osamu stares into Rintarou’s eyes. It’s like he’s capturing the moment. 

“But,” Osamu says, cupping his palm against Rintarou’s cheek. “I think it’s good. Sharing our relationship, I mean. It’s better to have more people in on it, supporting it.  _ More _ than just ‘Tsumu and whoever has to listen to yer emo-ass self.”

Rintarou places his hand on top of Osamu’s. “It’s not like we weren’t sharing before,” he argues. People just didn’t know.

“I mean being able to  _ talk _ with others about it. Sometimes when we’re angry or we’re upset, we don’t talk to each other, and we  _ definitely _ don’t talk to anybody else. It’s a lot of stress, carrying everything by yerself.”

“I’ll carry it with you?” Rintarou says, cheeky.

He gets an angry finger flick to the forehead. 

“Fine, I deserve that,” Rintarou sighs. “I’m not talking to Hinata though. He weirds me out.”

Osamu chuckles as he sighs into Rintarou’s embrace. “Not asking ya to. Anyone’ll do. I just appreciate the effort.”

Rintarou bites his ear. He whispers seductively, “You know where I would appreciate the effort?”

Hands travel down Osamu’s back and into his pants. It’s a tight fit.

At that moment, Chiaki walks into the kitchen and his bright blue hair is hard to miss. 

“Hey, we’re backed up like ten orders. Are you getting on that or—”

Chiaki pauses, assesses the scene. 

Rintarou doesn’t remove his hands. He blinks back innocently.

“Okay,” Chiaki says, immediately backing up. He heads out to the front. Loudly, he shouts big enough so that Rintarou and Osamu hear him. “Owner’s on his fifteen! Come back later please!”

Groaning, Osamu buries his face in Rintarou’s chest. He’s mortified. 

Rintarou vibrates with laughter, picking up exactly where he’d left off. 

“Hear that, ‘Samu? We’ve only got fifteen minutes. Better make this count.”

Osamu lifts his head, red. “I hate you.”

To that, Rintarou answers with a kiss. 

“I love you, too.”

[Sometime in the future]

Osamu’s asleep in bed when Rintarou sneaks out into the kitchen. After egregiously confusing the pancake mix with the potato mix, he sets the skillet on low simmer and has about five minutes to himself before Osamu comes ambling in, tired and droopy, while dragging the bedsheets behind him like he’s part of a royal procession. 

He picks up the scent of food immediately. Glomping onto Rintarou’s back, he whines about breakfast. 

Rintarou begs him to go sit in the living room. 

“No,” Osamu says. “I like this view.”

This view. This view of Rintarou waking up to make breakfast for Osamu before the sun has even risen; of an apartment that’s no longer empty and now feels full to the brim with life. This view of them.

“Too bad I can’t see it,” Rintarou says, trapped in place by Osamu’s monstrous bear hug. 

Osamu snuggles into his back. “Mm, I’m monopolizing it.”

Half an hour later, after they’ve placed their dishes in the sink, and after they’ve made a fort of pillows on the ground, they lay sprawled on the living room floor. Legs tangled together while spooning, they watch the sunrise slowly peek above the horizon. 

“Hey, Rin?” Osamu asks after a while. He’s sitting between Rintarou’s legs, resting his back against Rintarou's chest. He sounds like he’s in a daze, like he’s in a very nice dream.

“Yeah?”

“Do ya think the sun knows that it makes every tomorrow a today?”

Rintarou bundles the blankets a little closer around him and Osamu. “Why do you ask?”

“Just answer.”

“I think,” Rintarou says, squeezing Osamu like every touch is his last, “that the sun doesn’t think in tomorrows or todays, or even in seconds or minutes. It thinks in nows.”

Osamu turns his head. He looks up at Rintarou. His eyes are bright.

“And now is today?”

“And now is endless,” Rintarou says. Now is suspended, now is forever, he thinks. 

Osamu hums, agreeing. “Mm, yeah. I like that.” He leans back against Rintarou.

The sunrise streams soft orange beams through their window and through their curtain. It’s pretty. 

“I like our now,” Osamu says.

Rintarou holds him, holds him tight. 

They aren’t going anywhere. 

“Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They live in the dot of Jeremy Bearimy guys.

**Author's Note:**

> Any kudos or comments are much appreciated!


End file.
